Help from the Hills 



II-. P. Alason Abbott 





Class MMM 

Book JllAs* 

COfTOIGHT DEPOSm 



HELP FROM THE HILLS 



SENIOR 

CONFIRMATION INSTRUCTIONS 



H. P. ALMON ABBOTT, M.A. D.D. 

M 

DEAN OF TRINITY CATHEDRAL 

CLEVELAND, OHIO 



Copyright 1917 

BY 

H. P. ALMON ABBOTT 

All Rights Reserved 
for All Countries. 




FEB -9 1917 



SCHMEHL PRESS 
Cleveland, Ohio 

(S)r.i a 4 570 19 




PREFACE. 



It is a privilege to give commendation and ap- 
proval to that which will educate and develope the 
spiritual life. This manual is intended as a teaching 
agent; to practically help one in realizing the inesti- 
mable value and Blessing of God the Holy Ghost in 
His Sacrament of Confirmation. As we receive the im- 
mediate gift of Christ in the Holy Communion, so 
also we receive the active, operative power of the 
Holy Spirit in the Apostolic Laying on of hands. I 
heartily endorse this volume, and pray that it may 
prove its efficacy in the deepening and enriching of 
many souls. 

Cleveland, O. William A. Leonard, 

Trinity Cathedral, Bishop of Ohio. 

Advent 1916. 



AUTHOR'S FOREWORD. 

This little book is sent out into the world; and, 
by the nature of the case, it's world will be a small 
world; with two definite purposes in view. First; it 
is hoped that the Contents may be of some slight serv- 
ice to busy Priests who are called upon to prepare 
candidates for Confirmation. Secondly; the author 
trusts that the matter contained herein may refresh 
the memory, and recreate the Churchly Understand- 
ing, of men and women who have already received 
"The Laying on of Hands." 

The treatment of the subjects involved in the 
different Chapters is avowedly a popular treatment. 
The Theological is purposely subordinated to the 
Philosophical. This, it seems to the Author, is in 
keeping with the Modern Mind — which is more easily 
influenced by Theology related to Life than it is im- 
pressed by Life related to Theology; by Experience 
rather than by Authority. No claim is made either 
to originality, in the absolute acceptance of the term; 
or to scholarship, as scholarship is supposed to stand 
for minute accuracy of expression. The Chapters 
have been struck off red hot in the furnace of pa- 
rochial obligations, — perfection is, therefore, mort- 
gaged at the outset; and their substance may, in sev- 
eral instances, be traced to the writings of well known 
Bishops and Priests of The Anglican Communion, 
The Author, however, has not consulted any Text 
Books of any kind during the compilation of this 
diminutive volume. What he has written has come 
from the Sieve of his own Assimilation, and is in the 
nature of "stock in trade." 

That God may bless the accompanying pages to 
His Glory, and the further upbuilding of His Holy 
Church, is my most earnest prayer. 

H. P. Almon Abbott. 



RECOGNITION 

There are Books that become part and parcel 
with ourselves; Books that enter our lives, and take 
up their abode there; until it is difficult to separate 
between ourselves and them, and to affirm definitely 
where the one begins and the other ends. 

The Author is aware that he owes at least as 
much to his reading of such Books as he does to his 
own originality of thought, and so he would make 
most grateful acknowledgement of the undoubted 
assistance which he has received in the substance of 
this Manual from the following well known Writers: 

The present Bishop of London, Dr. Winnington- 
Ingram. 

Canon Scott-Holland. 

The Rev. G. F. Holden. 

The Rev. Henry Drummond. 

The Rev. E. C. S. Gibson. 

The Venerable Archdeacon Patterson Smythe. 

The Rev. William Bullock. 

The Rev. John Henry Jowett. 

The Rev. J. B. C. Murphy; and others. 



DEDICATION 

To the congregations of Christ 
Church Cathedral, Hamilton, On- 
tario, and Trinity Cathedral, 
Cleveland, Ohio, this little Book 
is dedicated — in recognition of 
the Charity that "beareth all 
things, believeth all things, 
hopeth all things, endureth all 
things." 



INDEX 

Page 

Preface, The Bishop of Ohio 3 

Author's Foreword 4 

Recognition 5 

Dedication 6 

Introduction, and the Nature of Confirmation 9 

The Necessity of Confirmation; together with the 
consideration of some current objections 17 

Discussion of The Gift received in Confirmation; 
God The Holy Ghost 35 

The relation between Baptism and Confirmation; 
Infant Baptism; and The Church 51 

Some Glories of The Church; a brief Historical 
Sketch of The Prayer Book; and The Church 
Calendar 67 

The Sacramental Idea 83 

The Holy Communion 97 

The Order of the Administration of The Holy 
Communion Service 107 

Preparatory Address to The Holy Communion 117 

Worship 125 

System in the Religious Life 131 



THE NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 



CHAPTER ONE 
E first question that we naturally ask ourselves 



when we are anxious to be confirmed is this: 



x What is Confirmation? To come to confirmation 
without knowing what confirmation is would be to 
derive little benefit from it. 

What is confirmation? We get a hint of the 
answer in the very position of the Confirmation Serv- 
ice in the Prayer Book. It comes after the Catechism, 
and the Catechism comes after the Baptismal Serv- 
ices. This means, does it not, that there are Three 
Steps into the Temple of Christianity? The first step 
is Baptism. We must be baptized, or initiated, that 
we may become a Christian, "a Child of God, and an 
Inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." I am not a 
Mason until I am initiated. Only then does the vast- 
ness of Masonic obligation, and what I might call 
Masonic differentiation, break in upon me. 

The second step is Instruction. I must begin to 
know what it means to be a Christian. The whole 
scheme of the undertaking must be presented, in out- 
line, at any rate, for my edification. Discipleship is 
only to be achieved through knowledge. It is not 
enough for me that I should be technically a Mason. 
I must, through study, achieve the atmosphere of 
Freemasonry. Then, and not until then, may I be a 
Mason in life as well as in profession. 

The third step is Confirmation. I am to be con- 
firmed in my initiation and illumination. I am to 
be strengthened in my discipleship, that I may keep 
the good things committed to my charge. As a tech- 
nical Mason, and as an instructed Mason, I am to re- 
ceive the imprimatur of my calling. 




[9] 



NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

What does Confirmation mean? The heading of 
the Confirmation service suggests the answer: "Con- 
firmation, or Laying on of Hands upon those who are 
baptized, and come to years of discretion." Confir- 
mation and laying on of hands each have a meaning 
of their own, and the full meaning of either is found 
in the meaning of both. The first prayer in the Con- 
firmation Service tells us what Confirmation is : "Al- 
mighty and ever-living God, who hast vouchsafed to 
regenerate these Thy servants by water and the Holy 
Ghost, and hast given unto them forgiveness of all 
their sins, Strengthen Them, we beseech, Thee, O 
Lord." Confirmation is strengthening; to be con- 
firmed is to be strengthened, to be made strong. 

What does the laying on of hands mean? In both 
the Old and the New Testaments the laying on of 
hands signifies the reception of a blessing. You re- 
member the story in Genesis, xlviii : Israel, when he 
was a very old man, and about to die, told Joseph to 
bring his two sons, Israel's grandchildren, to his bed- 
side, in order that he might bless them. And as 
Manasseh, the elder one, stood at his right hand, and 
Ephraim, the younger, at his left hand, he crossed his 
arms, and laid his right hand upon Ephraim's head, 
because he wanted him to have the better blessing, 
and his left hand on the head of Manasseh. So, in 
many passages in the Bible, we find that the laying 
on of hands always meant the act of blessing, and 
that the people upon whom the hands were laid re- 
ceived a blessing. I remember, just before leaving 
Oxford for my ministry on this side of the water, go- 
ing to say good-bye to Canon Ottley, the Regius Pro- 
fessor of Pastoral Theology. The good Canon, one of 
the most learned men in Christendom, author of a 
book upon the Incarnation which is said to be the 

[10] 



NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

greatest theological production in English since the 
appearance of Hooker's wonderful Treatise, bade me 
kneel at his feet. I did so; and then he placed both 
hands upon my youthful head and blessed me in the 
Name of the Triune God. I often think that I owe 
more to the blessing of that Godly man than might 
well be estimated in conventional phraseology. So 
pastors bless the people committed to their charge; 
and fathers their sons as they leave the paternal roof 
for adventure in the battle of life. The laying on of 
hands signifies the act of blessing, and those upon 
whom hands are laid receive a blessing. 

We are, therefore, taught two important truths 
about Confirmation. The first is that if Confirmation 
is to be strengthened or made strong, it is not some- 
thing you do, but something that is done to you. So 
with the laying on of hands: it is the reception of a 
blessing, so far as you are concerned — not the be- 
stowal of a blessing. It is not something that you do ; 
it is something that is done to you. It is well for us 
to remember this, because so often people say, when 
they are asked to be confirmed, "No; I am not good 
enough to do it." This, you see, is altogether invalid 
as an objection, when confirmation is something that 
is done to them. 

The second truth is this, and it is closely allied 
with the former : The laying on of hands teaches that 
you are coming, not to give, but to get — to get a bless- 
ing. There are those who say that they are afraid 
to be confirmed. But surely no one need be afraid to 
get a blessing. We need all the good things that we 
can get; we need, urgently need, all the help that we 
may receive, for God knows it is hard enough to be 
good; we demand, if we have any recognition of our 
spiritual condition at all, the best gifts, and no one is 

[ 11 ] 



NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

so cowardly that he will run away from a proffered 
acquisition. 

But if Confirmation is something done to us, if it 
is a gift given, who is the Doer, and who is the Giver? 
We find the answer again in the First Prayer of the 
Confirmation Service : "Strengthen them, we beseech 
Thee, O Lord, and daily increase in them Thy mani- 
fold gifts of grace." It is God who strengthens; it is 
God who bestows the blessing. "Every good gift, and 
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down 
from the Father of Lights." But we may not rest 
here. How does God bless men; how does He 
strengthen men? He gives His blessing; He vouch- 
safes His strengthening through His Bishops. This, 
when you come to consider God's normal manner of 
working, is reasonable. The mediatorial system, the 
indirect method, is written large in nature, and the 
God of Nature is the God of Grace. Our temporal 
blessings come to us indirectly. Bread is the staff of 
life. It is the gift of God. But how does it come to 
us ? We receive it through the instrumentality of our 
fellow-men. The farmer, the laborer, the miller and 
the baker are the middlemen, so to speak, between 
God's gift of bread and our reception of the gift. 
Take education: What a wonderful thing it would 
be if there were, indeed, a royal road to learning; if 
the infant at birth were endowed with all the wisdom 
of the ages. The opposite, however, is the truth. We 
must go to school through laborious years and sap 
the wisdom of our teachers. We must attend the 
university and assimilate the instruction of our pro- 
fessors. We must read books, think thoughts, form 
conclusions, and learn slowly so long as life may last. 
Knowledge is a gift from God, but it is achieved in- 
directly through our fellow-men, and in the greatest 

[12] 



- NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

of all universities — the University of Experience. It 
is so in all gifts for the body, and for the mind. God's 
method is indirect. The same is true in spiritual 
affairs. How does God make His Blessed Gospel 
known to men? It is not implanted in the heart of 
the new-born child; it is not written in flaming letters 
across the sky; it is not carved upon the undulating 
waters, nor blazed across the pathless forests. It 
comes to man through men. God gives us these things 
largely through His Church and His ministers. Bish- 
ops, priests and deacons are the ordained messengers 
of God, sent by God to bring His tidings and gifts to 
the souls of men. We are strengthened, then, in con- 
firmation; we receive a blessing in confirmation; 
from God, through His appointed servant, the Bishop. 

Now who ought to be confirmed? Obviously, 
those who are not as good as they ought to be, and 
who require all the help that they may receive to live 
a life consistent with profession. The people who 
think that they are good enough — although, as a mat- 
ter of fact, no one is good enough — ought not to be 
confirmed. It would be, to say the least, dangerous 
for them to undertake such a step. The people who 
know that they are not nearly as good as they might 
be if God were to give them of His supernatural 
grace, ought to be confirmed. They are ready for the 
strengthening; they are ripe for the blessing. The 
definite qualifications are given in the heading of the 
Confirmation Service: "those who are baptized, and 
come to years of discretion." Baptism and Divine 
Sense are the requisites. If you have not as yet been 
baptized, I hope that you will speak to me at the con- 
clusion of the class today, that we may make a date 
for your baptism, for you must be baptized, as we 
shall see at a later meeting, before you present your- 

[13] 



NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

self for confirmation. What do we mean by "years 
of discretion ?" Simply this : when we are old enough 
to be, in the old sense of the word, discreet, and to 
know the difference between right and wrong and to 
adhere to the right, we have reached the proper age 
for confirmation. This, of course, depends upon the 
individual. Some individuals are old enough to be 
confirmed at eleven years of age; others are too 
young for confirmation at seventy years of age! The 
reason why the Church lays stress upon "years of 
discretion" is because in the Ancient Church those 
who were baptized were immediately confirmed — 
not only adults, but infants as well. This is the rule 
still in the Eastern Church. Our branch of the 
Church believes in waiting until the individual knows 
something of what he is about when confirmed. No 
definite age is mentioned, because the Church would 
not forestall even the unintelligible operation of the 
Holy Ghost in the life of the youngest child. 
And now let us sum up. 

We have found Confirmation to be: the Confir- 
mation of our baptism; and instruction in the ele- 
ments of the Christian religion. Confirmation means 
to be strengthened, or made strong. Laying on of 
hands, an alternate name, signifies the reception of a 
blessing. Confirmation, then, is something that is 
done to us. It is a receiving — not a getting. Who 
strengthens us; who gives us the blessing? God. But 
God works indirectly, as a general rule, in grace as 
well as in nature. We receive the gift of Confirma- 
tion through God's authorized channel of communi- 
cation, the Bishop. 

Who ought to be confirmed? Those who desire 
to live the Christ life, and who, appreciating their 
own weakness, reach out hands for the strength that 

[14] 



NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

comes of God. Those who have been baptized, and 
who have reached years of discretion; who are wise 
enough to refuse the evil, and choose the good. 



[15] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 



CHAPTER TWO 

WE considered together in the previous chapter 
the question, "What is confirmation?" The 
subject for our discussion now is, "Why 
should I be confirmed?" 

First — In order that we may clear the ground, 
let us consider some of the current objections against 
the advisability of being confirmed. One objection is 
that confirmation is an invisible, intangible some- 
thing, in opposition to the material, pragmatical re- 
quirements of the present day. It is necessarily in- 
visible in its essence, because it has to do with the 
welfare of the soul, and the soul is invisible. The 
outward form, the laying on of the Bishop's hands, 
is visible, and, taking into account the sacramental 
nature of confirmation, is the "outward and visible 
sign" of the grace bestowed. The grace, however, 
"the inward and spiritual grace," is invisible. This 
invisibility is no argument against the reality of the 
gift given in confirmation, but the reverse. The pre- 
sumption is, metaphysically, that because a thing is 
unseen, it is most real. 

We have many illustrations of this in every-day 
life. Take love: Love makes the world go round. 
It is the greatest force in individual and corporate 
life. But love, in its essence, is invisible. Nobody 
has ever seen love. We know what love does; we 
may witness the external evidences of love; in the 
spoken word of endearment, in the clasp of the hand, 
and in the look of the eye; but love itself is intangible 
and ungraspable. 

Or take electricity: You cannot see electricity. 
It is so truly mysterious that even the expert does not 

[17] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 



as yet know what electricity is. But electricity runs 
our street cars, moves the variegated machinery of 
our factories, and lights our houses. 

Or take personality: The constituent elements of 
personality are reason, emotion, and will. Who has 
ever seen Reason; who has ever looked upon Emo- 
tion, and who has ever viewed Will in its naked sem- 
blance? The fact, however, remains that personality 
is the greatest power on earth. 

Or think of the wind : "The wind bloweth where 
it listeth, but . . . thou canst not tell whence it cometh, 
nor whither it goeth." We know, nevertheless, what 
wind may do, and actually does accomplish. It 
lashes the waters of the ocean into relentless fury; it 
bathes the shores of our inland seas with foam- 
crested breakers; it is involved in the clemency or 
the inclemency of the weather, and it uproots, in its 
consuming anger, the forests where the wild animals 
dwell, and the cities in which live the sons of men. 

So we cannot see confirmation; it is invisible and 
intangible; but we may exhibit, so that all may be- 
hold the transformation, the fruits of confirmation 
in our lives. 

Another objection closely allied with the former 
is that people are no better after confirmation than 
they were before. This is, of course, a charge aimed 
against Christianity in general. So many people 
refuse to have anything to do with organized Chris- 
tianity, because, as they say, they have known many 
Christians who were hypocrites. The point is that 
the difficulty does not reside in confirmation, or in 
Christianity, but in the person who is confirmed, and 
in the individual who professes Christianity. Chris- 
tianity is judged by the saints, by those who have, to 
the uttermost degree, co-operated with all that Chris- 

[18] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

tianity has to offer. It is the same thing with con- 
firmation. If people are no better after confirmation 
than they were before, it is not because there is no 
efficacy in confirmation, but because the person con- 
firmed has not worked with the added help given 
through confirmation. To take a homely illustration : 
Here is a man with two sons. He sends them both to 
Western Reserve University. One boy makes the 
most of his opportunities. He attends all his lec- 
tures; he reads all the prescribed textbooks upon the 
subjects which he is called upon to study; he applies 
himself day by day, and far into the night watches, 
to the assimilation of all available knowledge. He 
takes an excellent degree, and goes out into the world 
to reflect glory upon his alma mater, and to achieve 
honor for himself. The other son is a slacker. He 
skips as many lectures as the legal requirements in 
the case permit. He seldom, if ever, opens a book. 
He spends his days in frivolity, or in an excess of 
athletics. The consequence is that he gets far behind 
his fellow students in his studies, fails in his exami- 
nations, and is ultimately asked to leave the institu- 
tion before he has had the opportunity of standing 
for his final tests. Western Reserve University is the 
same in either case. All that it has to offer is offered 
to both young men. But one makes the most of his 
privileges, and the other makes the least of his ad- 
vantages. The virtue and the fault is an individual 
virtue and an individual fault. The university stands 
or falls by the quality of its best students. 

So is it in confirmation. God the Holy Ghost 
does come to take up His abode in our lives. He is 
resident within us to give us of His supernatural 
strength. But unless we work with the new power 
in our lives, we cannot expect to be any better after 

[19] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

confirmation than we were before. The chances are 
that, having failed to live up to our added oppor- 
tunity, we shall be worse off than if we had never 
undertaken the step. 

Another objection is that other churches do not 
have confirmation. In this connection I always think 
of Our Lord's answer to Simon Peter in the last 
chapter of St. John's Gospel. Jesus was foretelling, 
in veiled language, the manner and method of St. 
Peter's death, namely, that he would be crucified, 
even as his Master. And St. Peter, who had always 
been somewhat jealous of St. John, the disciple who 
leaned with his head on Christ's bosom at supper, and 
who no doubt was more often in the intimacies of 
Christ than the rest of the other disciples, turned 
to Jesus and said, "Lord, and what shall this man 
do?" Then came the famous answer, "If I will that 
he tarry till I come, What Is That to Thee? Fol- 
low Thou Me." It is not for us to question the wis- 
dom, or the lack of wisdom, of other churches in not 
having confirmation. It is for us to find out what we 
consider to be the right thing for us to do, and, in 
accordance with our educated conviction, to Follow 
Christ. Surely, the presumption is in favor of con- 
firmation when we realize that for the first fifteen and 
a half centuries of the existence of the Christian 
Church confirmation was the rule, and the universal 
practice. It was not until the Reformation, in the 
Sixteenth Century, that certain bodies of people, cut- 
ting themselves off from the historic Episcopate, gave 
up the custom of confirmation. Is it conceivable that 
for centuries, inclusive of the purest ages of Chris- 
tianity, when the stream, of Christian truth was near- 
est its source, confirmation should have been per- 
sisted in, if confirmation were wrong? I hope that 

[20] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 



as our course of instruction progresses we may come 
to believe in the advisability of confirmation, even 
though other churches than the great Catholic 
Church, in its several branches, do not believe in the 
necessity of the rite. 

Another objection is, of course, the old, hoary- 
headed affirmation: "1 am not good enough." It is 
just because we are not as good as we ought to be, 
and are painfully conscious of the fact that we ought 
to be much better than we are, and recognize the 
prime necessity of divine assistance if we are to begin 
to approximate the measure of the stature of our pos- 
sibilities of goodness, that we come to confirmation 
to be strengthened, and to receive a blessing. The 
gifts of God are forever given to those who need them 
— not to those who are so self-reliantly perfect that 
they do not need them. This is, of all objections, the 
most inane. It makes one realize that in religious 
matters people are more or less content to rest upon 
excuses which they would not in common sense tol- 
erate for a moment in their secular avocations. There 
are three current ideas of spiritual success: One is 
that we need not do anything; that God will do every- 
thing; that we have merely to sit down and let God 
"get in His good work." Another is that we are alto- 
gether sufficient unto ourselves; that the might of our 
own right arm gaineth for us the victory; that the 
aid of God is superfluous and unnecessary. The true 
idea is that God and man together, co-operating as 
partners, may achieve perfection. This idea is illus- 
trated in the intent and moment of confirmation. 

Now: Why Should We Be Confirmed? There 
is, as I see it, a three-fold answer to that interroga- 
tion. (1) Because the Church — the Episcopal Church 
in which I have been brought up, or which I desire to 

[21] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

join — commands it. (2) Because the Bible in which 
I believe teaches it. (3) Because in confirmation I 
receive a gift. 

(1) Because the Church commands it. The Church 
commands it in two places: In the baptismal office, 
where the priest, after the baptism, at the end of 
the service, says to the god-parents, "Ye are to take 
care that this child be brought to the Bishop to be 
confirmed by him, so soon as he can say the Creed, 
the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, and 
be further instructed in the Church catechism set 
forth for that purpose;" and in the insertion of the 
confirmation service in the Prayer Book, with its 
title, "The Order of Confirmation." 

Let us consider the first command. We must be 
able to say the Creed, and not only say it, but under- 
stand what we say. The Creed is a brief summary 
of the doctrines of the Christian faith. It comes from 
the word "Credo": I believe. Such a summary is 
also called "symbol"; that is a watchword against 
error in the faith; also "canon"; that is a rule or 
standard whereby to judge rightly of what ought to 
be believed. 

Creeds — for there are three Creeds: the Apostles' 
Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed — 
are the crystallized expression of the universal con- 
sciousness of the Church. Creeds originated in the 
baptismal formula, St. Matthew, xxviii, 19: "Go ye, 
therefore, and teach all nations; baptising them in 
the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost." The Creeds were originally baptismal tests. 
Converts, in their preparation for baptism, were 
taught the Creed orally. The Creed was publicly 
recited when the convert was baptised. In the New 
Testament we find several summaries of a Creed. 

[22] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

Romans, vi, 17: "The form of doctrine which had 
been delivered unto them." Galatians, vi, 16 : "The 
rule." Revelations, xi, 13: "Thou holdest fast My 
Name, and hast not denied My Faith." Then, in 
Hebrews, vi, 1 and 2, as we shall see later, there is an 
outline of the faith for elementary instruction. Forms 
of doctrine are also found in the Oldest Christian Fa- 
thers — in Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, etc. 

There are, as we have already said, three Creeds. 

There is The Apostles' Creed. There is a legend 
to the effect that the Apostles' Creed came into being 
in the following manner: One day all the apostles 
sat round in a circle, and gave individual expres- 
sion to their Christian conviction. One said, "I be- 
lieve in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven 
and Earth"; another said, "and in Jesus Christ, His 
Only Son, Our Lord." When the circle was com- 
pleted the Creed took shape as we have it today. 
This is, of course, but a legend, and is divorced from 
the truth. The Creed is called the Apostles' Creed 
because it embodies the doctrine which the apostles 
taught. It is found first in its present form in the 
middle of the Eighth Century, and seems to be com- 
posed of forms of doctrine current before the end of 
the Second Century. This is the simple Creed, the 
Creed, so to speak, for the Christian man in the street; 
It is direct, and, so far as possible under the necessi- 
ties of the case, non-metaphysical. It is the Creed in 
common use by all Christian people of whatever 
church or denomination. We have it incorporated 
in our morning and evening prayer. 

There is The Nicene Creed: This Creed was 
drawn up by the Church in council assembled in the 
year 325 A. D. It is called the Creed of Nicaea, be- 
cause of the name of the city in which the council 

[23] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

was held. It was drawn up in refutation of the 
heresy of Arius. Arius was a priest of Alexandria, 
who denied the eternal divinity of the Second Per- 
son in the Trinity. He said, "The Son of God was 
produced from things non-existent, and there was a 
time when He was not. He was a creature — a Thing 
produced." This error spread far and wide. To com- 
bat it the Emperor Constantine the Great summoned 
a council of the whole Church, so that by general con- 
ference upon the matter the real faith might be pro- 
claimed. Three hundred and eighteen bishops, be- 
sides priests and deacons, w r ere assembled, and the 
Nicene Creed was the result, with the exception of the 
filio que clause, "and the Son," which originated in 
the west at a later date. We recite the Nicene Creed 
in the Holy Communion service. This is appropriate 
and of the fitness of things, because (1) it is the unity 
ot the faith which links us to Christ's saints in all 
ages, and so we are able to offer in truth a corporate 
act of worship. (2) It reminds us that The Son, 
whose Glorified Humanity we plead, is of one sub- 
stance with the Father to Whom our worship is of- 
fered. (3) It reminds us that The Son humbled Him- 
self in the Incarnation as now He forever humbles 
Himself in the bread and wine. 

There is The Athanasian Creed. The date and 
authorship of this Creed are uncertain. It was writ- 
ten in Latin, but probably not by St. Athanasius, as 
we would gather from its name. It embodies the 
truth for which Athanasius stood, contra mundum — 
against the world. It is the stiff est Creed of the three, 
and in its uncompromising affirmation of the truth, 
leaving no liberty of private opinion on pain of eter- 
nal damnation, is unwelcome to many worthy peo- 
ple in the Twentieth Century Church. It is to be re- 

[24] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

membered, however, that the Athanasian Creed was 
originally a hymn, not a creed, and that it has been 
poorly translated from the original tongue in which 
it was composed. We are not called upon to recite 
the Athanasian Creed in the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, but in the Anglican Communion at large it 
is supposed to be said in public worship thirteen 
times during the course of the church year. 

We must be able to say the Lord's Prayer. This 
is the pattern prayer. The disciples came to Jesus 
one day and said, "Lord, teach us how to pray." And 
Jesus answered, "When ye pray, say 'Our Father, 
Who art in Heaven,' etc." It is the only prayer we 
know of composed by Jesus Christ which is in uni- 
versal use wherever Christians engage in the exer- 
cise of prayer. All other prayers are more or less 
perfect in construction and in sentiment as they ap- 
proximate the mould of the Lord's Prayer. The 
prayer is divided into two divisions: (1) The Wor- 
ship of God; (2) the recitation of our own needs. 
This should forever be the order of our supplications. 
We are to give to God before we may reasonably ex- 
pect to get from God. The most outstanding feature 
in the prayer is, perhaps, its unselfishness. It is all 
"our" and "us" — not "me" and "mine." You will no- 
tice that the ending of the Lord's Prayer : "For Thine 
is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, forever and 
ever," is apparently a movable quantity. Sometimes 
the prayer finishes with "deliver us from evil," and 
sometimes it finishes with the added sentence. The 
reason for this is that the Lord's Prayer occurs four 
times in the four Gospels, and twice it is the length- 
ened form, and twice the shortened form. Our 
Prayer Book is true to this peculiarity. The prayer 
occurs twice in morning prayer, and twice in even- 

[25] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

ing prayer, and once it is in the abbreviated form, 
and once in the intacted form. The shortened form 
is penitential in its character, and is used when we 
supplicate for pardon, or concentrate upon the 
thought of our sinfulness; the lengthened form is of 
the nature of thanksgiving. When the heart is light 
with the consciousness of sin forgiven, and when the 
portion of the stipulated service is suggestive of the 
goodness and greatness of God, and we desire to 
burst forth into praise and adoration, we end with 
the words, "For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and 
the Glory." 

We must also be able to say the Ten Command- 
ments, and be possessed of a knowledge of the 
Church catechism. Should you have any literal hesi- 
tancy on either count, I would ask you, between this 
and the day of your confirmation, to learn the Com- 
mandments and the catechism. There is a move- 
ment on foot in the Episcopal Church at the present 
time, as evidenced at the recent General Convention 
in St. Louis, to shorten the Ten Commandments. 
Surely, what we need today is to lengthen them, and 
to emphasize them to the fullest degree and extent. 
There was never a time, despite our improvement in 
men and manners, when we required the recitation 
of the Ten Commandments so much as in this second 
decade of the Twentieth Century. Adultery, and 
theft, and false witness, and swearing, and idolatry 
are still mentioned among us! The Ten Com- 
mandments are never old-fashioned, for when the 
day of their literal interpretation is past — and that 
will be a few thousand years ahead of us — they will 
be capable of infinite spiritual interpretation and ap- 
plication. The first four Commandments have to do 
with our duty towards God; the last five command- 

[26] 



NATURE OF CONFIRMATION 

ments have to do with our duty toward our neighbor. 
The fifth commandment, the only commandment 
with a promise, is the connecting link, or hyphen, 
between the two sets of Commandments. The sub- 
stance of the Ten Commandments was, of course, 
stated by Jesus, when He said, "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as thyself." 

The catechism is the Church's Handbook of In- 
struction. It contains within short compass all the in- 
formation upon the essentials of Christian faith and 
practice which it is necessary for a novice in Chris- 
tianity, especially in Episcopalian Christianity, to 
assimilate and understand. It is a compendium of 
rudimentary doctrine encased, so to speak, within a 
nutshell. I want you to read over the catechism from 
beginning to end; to study it, rather than to learn it, 
as so many children do, in parrot fashion. We shall 
return to it at a later lesson, especially in connection 
with its elucidation of the Sacraments, and I want 
you to have, both for that time and for your actual 
confirmation, a working knowledge of its contents. 

The Church, then, in the baptismal service, com- 
mands confirmation, and directs that the command 
should be complied with after the Christian is able 
to say the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten 
Commandments. 

(2) We should be confirmed because The Bible, 
In Which We Believe, Teaches It: You say, perhaps, 
"I do not find anything about confirmation in the 
Bible." There are several instances of confirmation 
in the New Testament; but you will find it under its 
alternate name, the laying on of hands. Where do 
we find confirmation in the New Testament? Why, 
first of all, in Acts viii, verses 5 to 8, verse 12, and 
verses 14 to 17. How straightforward is the reading. 

[27] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

Philip, the Deacon, or Evangelist, goes down to Sa- 
maria, and preaches Jesus Christ to the Samaritans. 
His work is blessed by God; he makes converts, and 
admits them into the Christian society by baptism. 
But there he stops. The progress of his work is then 
reported to the Chief Pastors of the Church, the Apos- 
tolic College at Jerusalem, and they immediately 
send down two of their number to complete the work 
which the subordinate minister has begun. "Now, 
when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard 
that Samaria had received the Word of God, they 
sent unto them Peter and John; who, when they were 
come down, prayed for them that they might receive 
the Holy Ghost (for as yet He was fallen upon none 
of them; only they were baptised in the Name of the 
Lord Jesus.) Then Laid They Their Hands Upon 
Them, and They Received the Holy Ghost." What 
was that if it was not confirmation, or the laying on of 
hands upon the baptised, with the result that those 
upon whom hands were laid received the Holy Ghost? 
Compare this with what the Church does today. We, 
your clergy, may baptise, preach to, and instruct, our 
people; but there we have to stop. The Bishop, the 
Chief Pastor of the diocese, has then to be called 
upon, and he comes down to the parish and lays his 
hands upon the baptised converts, and they receive 
the Holy Ghost. 

Again, we find confirmation in Acts xix, verses 
1 to 6. St. Paul, on one of his several missionary 
journeys, comes to the city of Ephesus, where he finds 
certain disciples. He catechises these disciples, and 
asks them a question which comes naturally to him 
through much practice, a question which comes in- 
stinctively to every Christian bishop today: "Have 
ye received the Holy Ghost; have ye been con- 

[28] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

firmed?" The answer is an astonishing one: "We 
have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy 
Ghost." This remarkable statement causes the apos- 
tle to ask another question : "Unto what, then, were 
ye baptised?" And the reply clears up the difficulty: 
"Unto John's baptism." The thing is plain. These 
people were not Christians at all. John's baptism 
was not a Christian baptism. It was merely a pledge 
of repentance, and the expressed desire to lead a new 
life. John's work, as St. Paul reminds his hearers, 
was preparatory for the great work of "Him which 
should come after him, that is, Christ Jesus." These 
Ephesian disciples are now taken in hand by the 
apostle. They receive full instruction, and in the 
end Christian baptism. But that is not all. When 
they have been baptised, "Paul lays his hands on 
them, and the Holy Ghost comes on them." 

We learn from these passages, do we not, that 
whatever some people may think of the importance 
and necessity of confirmation, or the laying on of 
hands upon the baptised, the apostles of Christ, who 
had been directly — or, in the case of St. Paul, indi- 
rectly — taught and trained by the Master Himself 
in matters pertaining to the Kingdom, were convinced 
of its importance, and never for one moment dis- 
counted its necessity. So convinced were they of this 
necessity that at a time of great personal danger, and 
of persecution — for it was immediately after the mar- 
tyrdom of Stephen, and the Christians were in high 
disfavor — they sent two of their number from Jeru- 
salem to Samaria that the confirmation of the Samar- 
itan converts might not so much as be delayed! 

So much, then, for two actual instances of con- 
firmation in the New Testament. I want, now, to 
draw your attention to a passage in the Epistle to the 

[29] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

Hebrews which implies the fundamental necessity of 
confirmation in the Christian life. The passage to 
which I refer is Hebrews vi, verses 1 and 2: "There- 
fore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, 
let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the 
foundation of repentance from dead works, and of 
faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and 
of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, 
and of eternal judgment?" What does this mean? 
Why, having been instructed in the primer of the 
Christian faith, having passed through the kindergar- 
ten, do not stop there; progress in your Christian ex- 
perience. Having laid the foundation, begin to build 
your superstructure. Go on through the various 
forms and classes in the Christian school, and grad- 
uate from school into the university of Christianity; 
mount upwards toward perfection. There are foun- 
dation stones in the Temple of Christianity — six of 
them — and they are Repentance, Faith, Baptism, Lay- 
ing on of Hands or Confirmation, Resurrection from 
the Dead, and Eternal Judgment. Now, we all realize 
the importance of a foundation. As the foundation 
is, so is the stability, and the utility, of a building. An 
insecure foundation denotes an insecure superstruc- 
ture. One of the fundamentals of the Christian life, 
then, is confirmation, and if we neglect it, we neglect 
it at our peril. 

Besides these instances, and this indirect testi- 
mony to the essentiality of confirmation, the actual 
word confirmation occurs some eight times in the 
Epistles of St. Paul. Sometimes the word means con- 
firmation as we have it today; sometimes it is merely 
the word confirm, or strengthen. Surely, we have at 
least shown that the Bible in which we believe teaches 
confirmation. If we would be Scriptural Christians, 

[30] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 



and there are many people who rightly regard the 
Bible as the final court of appeal in Christianity, we 
must be confirmed, and so live up to the teaching of 
the Word of God. 

(3) We should be confirmed, because In Con- 
firmation We Receive a Gift. The gift which we re- 
ceive, as we have seen from the instances which we 
have mentioned, is God the Holy Ghost. We are 
Trinitarians; that is, we believe in God the Father, 
God the Son and God the Holy Ghost; in the Trinity 
in Unity, and the Unity in Trinity; in the Three Per- 
sons in One Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity 
is overheard rather than heard in the Gospel. Where 
do we overhear the doctrine? When Jesus was bap- 
tised in the River Jordan there came a voice from 
Heaven, saying, "This is my Beloved Son, in Whom 
I am well-pleased." Then the Holy Spirit descended 
upon Jesus in the form of a dove. There we have the 
Three Persons — the Father speaking from Heaven, 
the Son being baptised, to Whom the Father speaks, 
and the Holy Ghost alighting upon the Son. More- 
over, all through His ministry, Jesus was forever 
speaking of the Father : "I and My Father are One." 
"Revealed to thee of My Father," etc., etc. His first 
recorded utterance is, "Wist ye not that I must be 
about My Father's Business," and His last words upon 
the cross were, "Father, into Thy Hands I commend 
my spirit." Then, just prior to His crucifixion, Jesus 
mentions the Holy Ghost: "It is expedient for you 
that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter 
will not come unto you; but if I go I will send Him 
unto you. He will convict the world." Here is the 
Son forever mentioning the Father, and here is the 
Son forecasting the regime of the Holy Ghost. There 
again we overhear the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, 

[ 31 ] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

in confirmation the Holy Ghost comes into His own 
in the individual life. The Father made us; His 
genius is that of Creation. The Son redeemed us; 
His genius is that of redemption. The Holy Ghost, as 
His very name implies, makes us holy; His genius is 
that of sanctification. The work of the Father, and, 
in a sense, the work of the Son, is in the past. The 
work of the Holy Ghost is in the ever-living present. 
We are living under the dispensation of the Holy 
Ghost. The Holy Ghost is pre-eminently Our Person 
in the Godhead. In confirmation He begins His full- 
est work in our personality. I would speak to you at 
greater length about the Holy Ghost at our next class. 
Will we not be glad and overjoyed to welcome such 
a Guest into our hearts, and will we not see that for 
Him there "is room in the inn"? Will we not furnish 
our best chamber for His occupancy, and realize the 
privilege of being confirmed, that we may house such 
Majesty? 

Now let us sum up : We ought to be confirmed, 
because although confirmation is invisible, it is most 
real; because if there are those who are not better 
after confirmation than they were before, it is not the 
fault of confirmation; they persist in their wayward- 
ness not because of, but in spite of confirmation; be- 
cause we are not as good as we ought to be, and need 
all the Divine uplift that we may receive. 

We ought to be confirmed, because the Church 
commands it; commands it in two places; com- 
mands it in the first place with certain requirements : 
that we should know the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, 
the Ten Commandments, and that we should be in- 
structed in the catechism. We found that there are 
three Creeds : the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, 
and the Creed of St. Athanasius. 

[32] 



NECESSITY OF CONFIRMATION 

We ought to be confirmed, because the Bible 
teaches it. It teaches it specifically in three places, 
and by implication in several other passages. 

Finally, we ought to be confirmed, because in 
confirmation we receive a gift, and the gift is the 
Third Person of the Ever Blessed Trinity, God the 
Holy Ghost. We find that the doctrine of the Trinity 
is overheard in the Scriptures, although it is nowhere 
definitely stated. 



[33 J 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 



CHAPTER THREE 

WE were speaking, at the latter part of our last 
instruction, about The Gift which we receive 
in Confirmation— The Gift of The Holy Ghost. 
It is necessary that we should deal further with the 
matter. 

First: I would mention, and briefly elucidate, 
The Widespread Neglect of the Holy Ghost In Mod- 
, ern Christendom. In the Creed we say, "I believe in 
* The Holy Ghost." Do we? I fear that such a state- 
ment is, oftentimes, a mere form of words; an ortho- 
dox pronouncement of the lips, and little more. To 
believe implies some knowledge of that in which we 
profess belief. Christian faith is not mere credulity; 
devoid of rhyme or reason; it is, largely, conviction 
based upon intelligent process of thought. 

It would be impossible to overstate — as Dr. 
Holden has said, and I am largely drawing upon his 
excellent Book upon The Holy Ghost for this in- 
struction — it would be impossible to overstate the 
difference between the stress laid upon the doctrine 
of The Holy Ghost in the Bible, and the stress laid 
upon the doctrine of The Holy Ghost in modern life. 
Jesus said: "It is expedient for you that I go away; 
for if I go not aw r ay The Comforter will not come 
unto you; but if I go I will send Him unto you." Jesus 
implied that there is a work for The Holy Ghost to 
do which He Himself could not accomplish. In con- 
trast to that assertion we have the undoubted fact 
that the deepest, and most expansive void in the indi- 
vidual Christian life in the 20th Century is the void 
of ignorance and negligence concerning the Holy 
Ghost. 

[35] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

What Are Some of the Reasons For This Prevail- 
ing Neglect? 

(1) There is the absence of controversy con- 
cerning the Holy Ghost: Controversy may be, and 
sometimes is, a bad thing. It may create bitterness 
among friends, and accentuate division between 
enemies. Of all kinds of controversy Religious Con- 
troversy is the most acrimonious, and enduring. But, 
controversy is sometimes a good thing. It is, at least, 
significant of interest in the thing controverted. The 
stormiest epochs of Church History have been the 
epochs of greatest interest, and enthusiasm. Martyrs, 
Confessors, and Saints breathed the atmosphere of 
controversy. Controversy symbolizes interest, 
awakens enthusiasm, and engenders conviction. Our 
modern habit of conducting religious controversies in 
Magazines, and in the Daily Press, with all the ab- 
surdities and superficialities necessarily involved, has 
its bright side. It means that people in general are 
interested in Religion. 

Now, not since the great controversy between 
Eastern and Western Christendom in the 11th Cen- 
tury about the Filio Que Clause, i. e., that The Holy 
Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as from the Fa- 
ther, has there been any vehement controversy con- 
cerning the Holy Ghost. The minds of Christians 
have been absorbed in other things, and the Holy 
Ghost has been pressed into the background of ob- 
servation and thought. If we could awaken contro- 
versy about the Holy Ghost, if we could get people to 
reverently argue about His Personality, and Preroga- 
tives, the prevailing neglect of the Holy Ghost would 
be a thing of the past. 

(2) The Holy Ghost is neglected because of the 
lack of clear thinking upon His Person and Work: 

[ 36 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

To many people the Holy Ghost is unreal, visionary, 
abstract, and ethereal. His very name, Ghost, is mys- 
terious, and divorced from substance, as we com- 
monly understand the term substance. We think of 
the words, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; so is every one 
who is born of the Spirit," and they suggest the in- 
tangibility of the Holy Ghost. So it is with regard to 
all the figures under which the Holy Ghost is sug- 
gested in the New Testament. When Jesus ordained 
His Apostles "He Breathed on them, and said, receive 
ye the Holy Ghost." The Holy Ghost is a breath. 
Or, there is the Baptism of Jesus, when "the Spirit 
of God descended like a Dove upon Him." The Holy 
Ghost is a Dove. Or, there was the day of Pentecost, 
and "there appeared cloven tongues like as of fire; 
and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The 
Holy Ghost is a flame. 

The truth is that we have concentrated our love 
and devotion upon the Second Person in The Trinity, 
Jesus Christ. He is most real, and the Holy Ghost 
is less real. It is, of course, only natural that we 
should honor and adore Jesus Christ. It was He 
Who "took upon Himself the form of a Servant, and 
was made in the likeness of man." It was He who 
"suffered for us men, and for our salvation." It was 
He Who shared our rations, and went into the thick 
of the fight, and lay upon the hard, cold ground 
with us. We cannot love Our Saviour with an excess 
of affection; nor begin to adore Him beyond His 
just deserts. But, we must see to it that in worship- 
ping The Son we do not forget the thought, and 
tribute, due the Holy Ghost. 

I remember once, many years ago, reading a ser- 
[ 37 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

mon by Dr. Drummond upon the Personality and 
Work of The Holy Ghost. It gave me a realistic con- 
ception of the Third Person in the Trinity which has 
been with me, to my mental and spiritual profit, ever 
since. 

Suppose that Jesus were still present on earth. 
In accordance with the laws of His limited Personal- 
ity He could only be in one place at one time. Let us 
suppose that He is $till resident in Palestine, and in 
the City of Jerusalem. The crowning experience of 
life would be to see, and to speak to Jesus Christ; 
towards that the efforts, and policy of the individual 
would be directed above and beyond all else. Every 
Custom House would be filled with presents being 
forwarded to Jesus Christ. Every Post Office would 
be surcharged with letters addressed to Jesus Christ. 
Every ship crossing the ocean would be thronged with 
pilgrims on their way to see Jesus Christ. Let us 
imagine that you and I set out for Jerusalem to meet 
Jesus Christ. We travel from here to New York by 
train. The train is filled with people on their way 
to take passage for the East; bound, as we are bound, 
to see Jesus Christ. In New York we get on board a 
ship literally packed with men and women on their 
way to Palestine to see Jesus Christ. And now we 
are sailing the blue waters of the Mediterranean. 
Hope beats high; hearts are thumping with keen ex- 
pectancy; joy suffuses our outlook; for we are soon 
to see, and to meet, Jesus Christ. We are to look into 
His Divine Face, to hear His Divine Voice, and to 
feel the pressure of His Loving Hand. Soon, in the 
dim distance, we see The Holy City. We draw 
nearer, and behold the burnished dome of the 
Temple, flashing in the oriental sunlight. But — as we 
approach still nearer our destination there breaks 

[38] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

confusedly upon our view a moving mass of ob- 
struction. We come closer, and it assumes the pro- 
portions of a struggling crowd of people. What does 
this mean? Why, here are hundreds, and thousands, 
and millions, of men and women who have come to- 
gether from all parts of the world to see Jesus Christ. 
They have arrived before us. Some of them have 
been here for years, but they have not looked as yet 
upon the Face of The Master. Many who were here 
have gone away, returning dejectedly to their homes. 
They have realized the utter impossibility of ever 
catching so much as a glimpse of their Saviour. So 
our ambition is falsified; our hope is shattered; and 
our enthusiasm is cooled as with the leaden rod of 
stern necessity 

It was to avoid this very possibility, among other 
reasons, that Jesus ascended into Heaven. The 
Limited God, who could only be in one place at one 
time, went away, in order that the Ubiquitoijs God, 
Who is able to be in all places at all times, might take 
His place. The Local Deity gave place to the Uni- 
versal Deity. 

I like, then, to think of the Holy Ghost: and it 
helps me to a realization of the Personality of the 
Holy Ghost; as the Invisible Jesus Who is carrying 
on all over the world all the time the ministry which 
Jesus carried on for three years and a half in Galilee 
and Judea. Do not mistake me. I do not mean for 
one moment that Jesus and the Holy Ghost are identi- 
cal, save in the Oneness of the Personality of the 
triune Godhead, but that the Holy Ghost is perpetu- 
ating the ministry of The Christ, and is continuing 
throughout the ages invisibly the work of the Visible, 
Manifested Jesus. 

When we think thus of the Holy Ghost the ab- 
[39] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

stract becomes concrete, and the vague assumes 
shape and identity. 

(3) The Holy Ghost is neglected because of the 
aversion, the instinctive aversion, of the natural man 
to the things of the Spirit: We may not gainsay 
that aversion, or repugnance. For most of us, if not 
for all of us, it is easier to be bad than good at the 
beginning of our Christian life; even as it is natural 
for the toddling child to be ungrammatical in speech. 
Take a boy of ten years of age to Church. Does he 
enjoy it? Not as a rule. He finds it a bore. He 
had far rather be out upon the playing field. That 
is the Natural Man writ large. Save for the inherent 
tendencies of his uneducated nature the boy would 
prefer listening to a sermon to participation in a 
game of baseball. 

Or, take the average business man. What is he 
pre-eminently interested in? His business, and, out- 
side business hours, his family, or his pleasures. The 
dream infinitely worth dreaming, and the vision in- 
finitely well worth seeing, is the dream that he sel- 
dom dreams, and the vision that he spasmodically 
sees. When you appreciate the fact that life is un- 
certain, and that death is sure, this is, unquestionably, 
an extraordinary fact. The only possible explana- 
tion is the aversion of the natural man \o the things of 
the Spirit. "The Natural Man receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness 
unto him; neither can he know them; for they are 
spiritually discerned." And, as St. Paul says, "The 
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against 
the Flesh." 

Is it, therefore, any wonder that the Person and 
Work of the Holy Ghost are neglected? If Landor 
could say of his poetry that it was not for light read- 

[ 40 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

ing, and that the lights would be turned low in his 
banquetting hall, and the audience be few and select, 
may we not say that the same attitude of people 
toward the Holy Ghost will be true, and in intensified 
degree? It is only by "the fighting with wild beasts 
at Ephesus," by persistent warfare against the flesh, 
by the formation of good habits, until good habits are 
stronger than bad, and we come to live by "the 
blessed law of liberty," that the Holy Ghost may be 
appreciated. 

(4) The Holy Ghost is neglected because of Sin : 
Sin always quenches the Holy Ghost. Unholiness is 
the opposite of Holiness. Sin is anarchy, rebellion, 
civil war, separation, all in one. Sin means 
that we are at discord with God, and so at log- 
gerheads with the Holy Ghost. Vice and virtue are 
antithetical to one another. We have to be in sym- 
pathy with music and with art before we may under- 
stand music or art. We have to be in accord with the 
things of the Spirit before we may appreciate the 
things of the Spirit. "Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God" — see God the Father, God 
the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The impure in 
heart shall not see God. 

These, then, are some of the causes for the wide- 
spread neglect of the Holy Ghost — The absence of 
controversy concerning the Holy Ghost; The lack 
of clear thinking about the Holy Ghost; The aversion 
of the natural man to the things of the Spirit; and, 
The presence of sin. 

We must, through resolution, education, and pre- 
vailing prayer; above all, by a life squared with 
Christian principle; remove all obstacles to the free 
sway of the Holy Ghost in our lives. 

[ 41 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

Now, What are Some of the Results of this Neg- 
lect of the Holy Ghost? 

(1) A paucity in the number and quality of the 
Saints. Since the absence of interest in, and enthu- 
siasm for, the Holy Ghost, the Saints have been few 
and far between. There are, of course, other rea- 
sons for the fewness of the Saints. There is the lack 
of rigid persecution : Times of persecution have al- 
ways been prolific in the production of saintly char- 
acters. It is then that a person's belief is tested, and 
that he knows just where he stands religiously. Were 
the stake popular at the present time we should know 
beyond peradventure just how many professing 
Christians are really Christians. This European war 
has brought the Spread Eagle Orator to his senses; 
so persecution brings Christians to their Divine 
Senses. 

Another reason for the paucity, comparatively 
speaking, of the Saints is, no doubt, the improvement 
in the general run of Christians. More people are 
Christians, and more people are better Christians, 
today than in previous times, and so it is harder to 
be an extraordinary Christian than it used to be. It 
is harder to be a scholar today than heretofore, be- 
cause the Standard of Scholarship has been raised, 
and also because the number of scholarly men and 
women has increased. 

The real reason, however, for the paucity in the 
number of the Saints is the neglect of the Fount of 
Sanctity. Devotion to the Holy Ghost has ever been 
the distinguishing mark of holy lives. It is the Holy 
Ghost Who makes us holy. When He is neglected, 
therefore, that is lost which cannot be substituted for 
in any other way. 

(2) Another result of the neglect of the Holy 

[ 42 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

Ghost is the obscuring of the Church as an integral 
part of the Deposit of Faith: You see what I mean. 
The general run of people today seem to believe that 
the Church is a Man Made Organization. It matters 
little, therefore, what Church you belong to; by all 
means stick to the Church in which you were reared, 
or join any Church that fits in with your individual 
preferences. It is because of this misconception that 
men and women are so joyously broadminded. As 
a matter of fact the True Church was founded by 
Jesus Christ Himself. It is not a man made society; 
it is a God Born Institution. Why did Jesus come 
down from Heaven to earth? Why did He leave His 
Father's Throne to mix up in this sorry scheme of 
things entire? There are two opposing answers. 
Some say that Jesus came from Heaven to earth to 
live a beautiful life; to preach beautiful sermons; to 
inculcate beautiful principles; and to die a beautiful- 
ly self-sacrificing death. When He went away from 
earth He left nothing behind Him save the record of 
His life, the account of His sermons, the digest of His 
principles, and the soul-stirring report of His death 
upon the Cross. Then, men came along, and ac- 
cepted what they liked of His life, rejected what they 
did not approve of His sermons, discarded what they 
found to be temperamentally opposed to their pre- 
dilections of His principles, and formed themselves 
into various propagating organizations. Others say, 
and believe with all their hearts and souls, that Jesus 
came from Heaven to earth possessed of one all con- 
suming purpose, namely, to found a Society, an Ec- 
clesia, a Church, through which His Truth would be 
preached, and perpetuated until the end of time. So, 
we find Jesus turning away from the multitude with 
all their needs, and together with twelve men whom 

[43] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

He had selected from the multitude going out into 
secluded places, apart from the populated districts of 
the country; to the mountain side, on the bosom of 
the inland sea, in the desert reaches; that He might 
have the opportunity of instructing His selected pu- 
pils in the truth of His Kingdom, or Society. This 
Society came into the fullness of its existence on the 
Day of Pentecost, and then started out upon its time- 
less journey. That is to say, when Jesus ascended into 
Heaven He left behind Him His Church, the perpetua- 
tion of His Incarnation, through which forever, on 
earth, in Paradise, and ultimately in Heaven, His 
Life, and Sermons, and Principles, and Death are en- 
shrined. There is a difference, therefore, between 
Churches. It does make all the difference in the 
world what a man does believe. There is such a 
thing then as the virtue of narrow-mindedness; when 
narrow-mindedness is inclusive of the truth, and 
broad-mindedness may be a denial of fact. 

Now, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit Who is leading 
us into all truth, is necessarily the governing factor of 
the Church. When we neglect the Holy Ghost, there- 
fore, we get all sorts of wrong ideas about the Church. 
The Church is The Spirit bearing Body; when we 
neglect the Church we must, perforce, neglect the 
Spirit, and vice versa. 

(3) Another result of the neglect of the Holy 
Ghost, a result closely allied with the foregoing, is a 
Divided Christendom : Our divisions are undoubted- 
ly unhappy, and divorced from the intention of Jesus 
Christ. "I in them, and Thou in me; that they may 
be made perfect in one. That the world may know 
that Thou hast sent me." Think of the loss involved 
in a divided Christendom. There is the overlapping 
of effort. In our small towns ten churches are seek- 

[44] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

ing the support of a community which is really 
capable of supporting one. We speak oftentimes of 
the miserable pittances paid our Clergy. The root 
of the trouble lies right here. Proportionize the num- 
ber of the Clergy to the number of Christians, and 
every Clergyman would receive at least a living wage. 
Then, think of the handicap presented by a divided 
Christendom in the Mission Field. The heathen 
when importuned by different Christian Sects to be- 
come Christians are naturally in a fog as to what it 
means to be a Christian. The financial support for 
our missionary work is, also, cut into tens and 
twenties, instead of being lumped; moreover, many 
sane people refuse to give to missions at all, just be- 
cause they appreciate the anomaly of the situation of 
Christian Missionaries in the missionary districts of 
our own country, and elsewhere. 

Yes, a Divided Christendom is a variegated 
source of weakness to the promotion of the Christian 
Cause. Now, the Holy Ghost is the Fount of Unity 
as well as the Fount of Sanctity. The Holy Ghost is 
within the Godhead itself the cementing power. He 
is called "the Kiss between the Father and the Son." 
It is because the Holy Ghost is neglected that sec- 
tarianism, and denominationalism are rife. The Holy 
Ghost is the Kiss between man and man. Let us pray 
to the Holy Ghost that He would bring severed peo- 
ples together; that He would make humanity realize 
that the Incarnation means nearness; and that the 
spirit of the Christ demands that every Church 
should get down into the arena of difference, and see 
wherein it has sinned in this connection. 

(4) The neglect of the Holy Ghost has lost for 
us, largely, the Comforter: In the darkest moments 
of life; when the mind is harassed, and the soul cast 

[45] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

down; when we are prepared to say with the Psalm- 
ist, "all Thy waves and storms are gone over me;" 
when with The Master we cry, "My God, My God, 
why hast Thou forsaken me;" it is the Holy Ghost 
Who sustains; it is the Holy Ghost Who dries the 
eyes; it is the Holy Ghost Who brings peace to the 
lacerated heart. All other resorts are but earthly 
expedients, and counterfeits. Jesus promised that 
The Comforter should come, and an innumerable 
company of people in all ages testify to the fact that 
He has indeed come, and with wondrous healing in 
His wings. But, all frenzy in sorrow; all hopeless- 
ness in failure; prove in inverse ratio that many 
modern Christians are without the conscious presence 
of The Comforter in their lives. 

These, then, are some of the results of the neglect 
of the Holy Ghost: A scarcity in the number of the 
Saints; The obscuring of the truth about the Church; 
A Divided Christendom, with all its evils; and The 
Loss of The Comforter. 

I want to consider further the Approach of the 
Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is to approach our 
souls in Confirmation. All that we may learn, then, 
of the method of the Holy Ghost's approach is appo- 
site to the matter we have in hand. 

Now, how does the Holy Ghost approach the 
Soul? There are two answers differing widely from 
one another; between which there is no possible 
reconciliation, apart from the deepest respect for dif- 
fering convictions. 

(1) There is the Puritan, or Protestant answer: 
This is, in effect, that the Holy Ghost deals directly 
with the Soul. All external media, and all sacra- 
mental ordinances, are to be discarded as dangerous 
to true religion; which is the worshipping of God in 

[ 46 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

spirit and in truth. Ritualism is of the devil. The 
less we have to do with outward forms, and material 
agencies, the better. 

(2) There is the Sacramental, or Catholic, 
answer: The material has been hallowed, and con- 
secrated forever by the Incarnation. The Holy 
Ghost uses a thousand material agencies, instruments, 
channels, through which He approaches the soul. 
The normal method of the Holy Ghost's approach is 
the Indirect Method. 

These answers are, as you may see, opposite to 
one another. The difference is fundamental, A vast 
multitude of people hold one view, and a vaat multi- 
tude of people hold the other view. We are either 
puritanical, or catholic. Whatever we are, let us 
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. If 
we do not like ceremonies, then do not let us use 
them; but let us appreciate the fact that other Chris- 
tians are honest in their employment of them. 

Now, personally, I believe the Sacramental 
Answer to be the right answer; and in this I have, I 
verily believe, the consensus of opinion of the Epis- 
copal Church. 

Let us consider the Sacramental Answer: The 
normal methods of God in Nature are indirect, and 
the God of Nature is the God of Grace. I say normal 
methods advisedly; because, of course, there are ex- 
ceptions. The Free Spirit of God which bloweth as 
the wind where it listeth is unrestrained. 

The mediatorial method, as we have seen pre- 
viously is writ large upon God's world of nature. 
Through the medium of parents we come into ex- 
istence; we are not dropped down fully formed 
from the sky. We are sustained in life through nu- 
merous subordinate agencies. It is at least thinkable 

[ 47 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

that God should have created a creature capable of 
existing without food. The fact, however, is that He 
did not. To think that we may exist without food is 
one of the first symptoms of approaching insanity. 

Or, take the Body. It is at least conceivable that 
God should have made it a far less complicated 
mechanism than He did. As a matter of fact, Chris- 
tian Science notwithstanding, a w T hole class of men 
have to make it their business to look after the wel- 
fare of the body. The physician is of God. The 
Most High hath created him. Our health, then, often- 
times, through medicine, and surgery, comes to us in- 
directly. If the idea that one may exist without food 
is a symptom of insanity, the conviction that we may, 
when ill, get along without the doctor is tantamount 
to lunacy. 

Or, take Education: The mediatorial system 
shines clear in education. What a comfort it would 
be were the hoary-headed Philosopher able to trans- 
mit his accumulated wisdom to the new-born child. 
But, he cannot. Each child brought into the world 
has to begin life all over again. We have to be 
grounded in the elements of knowledge; we have to 
attend school, and the university, and be instructed 
by others. Dependence upon teachers, and books, 
and experience, is essential to wisdom. 

The God of Nature, then, works mediatorially. 
To assert that the God of Grace works differently, is 
to involve oneself in a hopeless contradiction. 

Let us consider the indirect approach of the 
Hol} r Ghost: 

(1) In the Old Testament: God made man in- 
directly; He made man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed in man's nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul. This is all the more striking 

[ 48 1 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 



if we believe in evolution. Out of pre-existing matter 
the human creature was fashioned. 

"A fire -mist, and a planet, 

A crystal and a cell; 
A jelly fish and a Saurian, 

A cave where the cave men dwell. 
Then, a sense of law, and beauty, 

A face turned from the clod." 

Then, we have the apparition through the Burn- 
ing Bush to Moses; the method of attack upon Jericho. 
These, together with many other instances we might 
mention, prove the truth of God's Indirect Action. 

(2) In the New Testament: "The Word be- 
came flesh." God was made man. For many years 
Jesus supported Mary. 

Take the Miracles: "He took clay, and spat 
upon it, and anointed the eyes of the blind man." In 
the raising of Jairus Daughter, He stooped down, and 
took the little maid by the hand, and said, "I say 
unto thee, arise." He took a whip of small cords, 
and drove the money changers out of the Temple 
precincts. Jesus voluntarily selected the sacramen- 
tal method, or the indirect system, in the perform- 
ance of His miracles. 

Take the Parables: The ordinary sights and 
sounds of the world were pressed into the service of 
the Spirit. We have the vineyard; the sheepfold; 
the seed; the leaven; the pearl; the sunrise, and the 
sunset; the rock; the oil; the coin; the lamp. Jesus 
drove His direct Truth indirectly into the minds and 
consciences of men. 

Take His Gospel: How was He to make it 
known after He left the world? He might, as we 
have already suggested, have caused it to be writ- 
ten across the sky; He might have implanted it in 
the heart of the suckling child; He might have 

[ 49 ] 



THE CONFIRMATION GIFT 

carved it upon the waters; He might have blazed it 
across the trackless forests. He did no such thing. 
He enshrined it in His Teaching Church; His Or- 
dained Ministers are His messengers to the children 
of men. 

Take the Sacraments: How is the Grace be- 
stowed in Baptism? Through water, and the Name 
of The Trinity. How is the Grace given in the Holy 
Communion? Through the bread and wine. 

Yes, the Incarnation has hallowed the material 
forever. The Holy Ghost approaches, ordinarily, 
the souls of men indirectly. 

There are, then, two answers as to The Approach 
of The Holy Ghost to man. The Puritan Answer, and 
the Catholic Answer. 

The Puritan Answ r er is that the Holy Ghost comes 
directly. The Catholic Answer is that the Holy Ghost 
comes indirectly. 

We find that the God of Nature works indirectly 
in creation; in sustenance; in health; and in educa- 
tion. 

The God of Nature is the God of Grace. The 
God of Grace works indirectly both in the Old Tes- 
tament, and in the New Testament. 

The Message of Christianity to the Material 
World is a Message of honor. 

We have spoken, then of the Neglect of the Holy 
Ghost; of the causes of that neglect, and of the con- 
sequences of that neglect. We have also dealt with 
the method of the Holy Ghost's Approach. 

May all that we have said have the effect of con- 
centrating our thoughts upon the Holy Ghost; and 
fill us with a fearful, and yet joyful, expectancy as 
to The Gift which we receive in Confirmation. 

FOOT NOTE — I am, as stated, obviously indebted in this chapter to Dr. Holden's splendid book 
upon The Holy Ghost. — Author. 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, THE CHURCH 



UR subject at this time is two-fold: The Re- 



lation between Baptism, and Confirmation, and 



The Church. In Baptism we become Chris- 
tians, members of the Christian Society, irrespective 
of Denomination, and in Confirmation we become 
distinctive Christians, members of The Episcopal 
Church. The appositeness of the juxtaposition of 
our Theme is, therefore, apparent. 

(1) The Relation Between Baptism and Con- 
firmation. The Heading of the Confirmation Service, 
you will remember, tells us that those who are to be 
confirmed must, first of all, have been baptised. The 
Question, then, is — what has Baptism to do with Con- 
firmation? 

To answer this interrogation we must know what 
Baptism is. In the first prayer in the Confirmation 
Service the Bishop says : "Almighty and Everlasting 
God, Who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these Thy 
servants with water and the Holy Ghost, and hast 
given them forgiveness of all their sins." 

What is the significance of "regenerate with 
water and the Holy Ghost?" In St. John 111:3, we 
find another expression used by Jesus Christ which 
suggests the explanation. "Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, except a man be born again," etc. "Regenerate," 
and "born again" mean the same thing. To be bap- 
tised, then, is a heavenly and a second birth; a birth 
from Above. Achieve the significance of Birth, and 
you have achieved the significance of Baptism. 

What is Birth? When we are born into this 
world we become our parents' child. The father and 
mother say, "this is my child," and if the baby were 



CHAPTER FOUR 




[51] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

able to enunciate the baby would say, "I am father's 
and mother's child." So in Baptism, when we are 
born again we are made "members of Christ;" we 
become the Adopted Children of the Heavenly 
Father. This is why The Lord's Prayer comes at 
the end of the Baptismal Service. It is only then, 
after the actual baptism, that we are able to kneel 
down, and say "Our Father." 

But, when we are born into this world as our 
parents' child we owe something to our parents. The 
teaching of the Fifth Commandment is to that effect, 
"honour thy father and thy mother," that is, "give 
them their due," "remember the duty that you owe 
them." So when we are baptised, and born into The 
Family of God, we owe a duty to God. We must 
voluntarily give our Heavenly Father His due; we 
must do our consecrated best to please Him. 

Now, the point is, Where shall we get the power, 
the will, and the strength to please God? Why, God 
who makes us His children in Baptism gives us at the 
same time the power of pleasing Him. 

When we are born into this world we are given 
power to live the Life of the Body. The baby is born, 
and so is alive. Its eyes can see; its voice can cry — 
as all parents have learned through sad experience — 
its ears can hear, its lungs can breathe, and its hands 
and feet can move. 

When, through Baptism, we are born into the 
spiritual world we are given by God the Life of the * 
Spirit. There is an unseen world; there are spiritual 
realities — God and Angels, Absolute Truth, Heaven 
about us, as well as Heaven within, and above us. 
The Life of the Spirit, given to us in Baptism, 
puts us in touch with our spiritual environment, 
just as the Life of the Body, given to us in 

[52] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

earthly birth, places us in correspondence with the 
realities of life on earth. 

But, the Life of the Body, given to us in ordinary 
birth, must be taken care of, watched, and strength- 
ened, or it will die. When a little baby is born its 
life is a mere spark; it is easily put out. The baby 
must be protected, so that as the child grows the life 
may become stronger and stronger. We must eat 
to live: we must exercise to keep in health; we must 
obey hygienic law T s; and, when occasion demands, 
we must seek physical assistance from the physician, 
or surgeon, or both. 

So, the Life of the Spirit given to us in the second 
birth of Baptism must be cared for, watched, and 
strengthened, or it will die. There are powers ar- 
rayed against the health of the soul, even as there are 
powers in league against the physical well being of 
the body. There is sin, and sin produces spiritual 
death. 

It is here that we get the relation between bap- 
tism and confirmation. Confirmation is one of the 
ways in which the spiritual life given to us in Baptism 
is protected, and strengthened. It is the nourishment 
of the life given to us when we are "born again." Jesus 
illustrates this in The Parable of the Ten Virgins. 
Each Virgin had a lamp; each Virgin at first had oil; 
the lamp of each Virgin started by being lighted. By 
and by some of the lamps of some of the Virgins 
went out. Whose was the fault? The guilty person 
was, in each case, the owner of the lamp; she had 
neglected to provide herself with sufficient oil for the 
lamp to feed the flame. 

Each Christian has a Lamp, i. e., the Spiritual 
Life given to us in Baptism. The Lamp was lit when 
we were baptised. At that time the Oil of the Holy 

[ 53 ] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

Spirit was given to us. But if the Lamp is to go on 
burning within us, if the Spiritual Life which places 
us in correspondence with spiritual realities is to be 
continued in its virility, we must have more oil; 
nourishment, spiritual food, must constantly be pro- 
vided for the soul. Confirmation is one of the ways 
in which God gives us more oil. It is not the only 
way, for God gives us spiritual oil by what are called 
The Means of Grace; but Confirmation is an import- 
ant way, and we cannot neglect it without grave peril 
to the life of the Spirit. 

Do you see, then, why Confirmation comes after 
Baptism? Do you grasp the relation between the 
tw r o? The Life of the Spirit given in Baptism must 
be strengthened in Confirmation. If we would please 
God, please Him more and more with the passage of 
the years, we must seek added help, or Grace, from 
God. 



Now, speaking further upon the subject of Bap- 
tism, w r e notice that in The Episcopal Church Baptism 
is normally administered to infants. I think that it 
would be well for you to know, in brief, why this is 
so. As you are undoubtedly aware, a large body of 
Christian people, the Baptists, who stress Baptism 
more than any other Christian rite or ceremony, 
strongly disbelieve in the wisdom, and actually in 
the validity, of infant Baptism. It is necessary for 
us to have a reason for the faith that is in us. 

Why do we believe in infant Baptism in the 
Episcopal Church? 

(1) There is the silence of Scripture: There 
is no definite command to baptise infants, and there 
is no definite command not to baptise infants. The 
charge of Jesus is general : "Go ye into all the world, 

[ 54 ] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

and preach the Gospel to every creature, baptising 
them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost." We, therefore, take refuge in analogy. We 
turn to the Old Covenant and ask, — what was the 
custom among the Jews? The facts of the case are 
that the Jews were familiar with the idea of children 
being brought into covenanted relationship with God 
through baptism. Baptism was practised by the 
Jews in the admission of Proselytes; for the Talmud 
expressly says, "infants are to be baptised with their 
parents." Moreover, male children were circumcised 
when they were eight days old. Surely the New Cov- 
enant, based upon the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, 
will be at least as all inclusive as the Old Covenant, 
the Covenant of the Law, and of the Letter! 

(2) Jesus Christ "took little children up in His 
arms, and laid His hands upon them, and blessed 
them." He deemed little children capable of the 
reception of a blessing. The little children did not 
know Who He was; even their parents did not realize 
that He was The Son of God; but that made no dif- 
ference. The action of The Divine was not limited 
to the comprehension of the human. May we do bet- 
ter than follow the example of Our Lord, and Master; 
especially when He said, "of such is the Kingdom of 
Heaven?" 

(3) In The Acts and Epistles we have instances 
of Whole Households being baptised. Now, it is con- 
ceivable that in one or two households there should 
be no children, but it is inconceivable that in many 
households there should only be adults. Think, 
for instance, of Acts XVI: 15 and 33: "and when she 
was baptised, and her household; 99 "and was bap- 
tised, he and all his, straightway." Think of I Cor. 
1:16, "and I baptised also the household of 

[ 55 ] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

Stephanas." Think also of St. Peter's sermon on the 
day of Pentecost, Acts 11 :38, 39, "then Peter said unto 
them, repent and be baptised every one of you in the 
name of Jesus Christ; for the promise is unto you, 
and your children." 

(4) From the earliest times the Church has been 
familiar with the idea. We read of Infant Baptism 
in Justin Martyr, in Irenaeus, in Tertullian, in Origen, 
in St. Cyprian, and in many others. 

To my mind there is an argument stronger than 
all these. Is it conceivable that we should surround 
our children from the earliest moment of birth — and 
even before, for when they are expected we make 
loving preparation for their advent — with our devo- 
tion, and, yet, that God should refuse to have any- 
thing to do with the individual until the individual 
is full grown? Will He decline The Life of the 
Spirit until the Life of the Body has reached its ma- 
turity? Surely not; if we, being evil, know how to 
give good gifts to our children — how much more, and 
with what greater intensity, God ! 

Is it logical that we should have our lamps filled 
with oil when we are well on in years, and then im- 
mediately afterwards have the already well filled 
lamp replenished — before there was any need of 
replenishment? Is it not of the nature of expediency, 
and of sanity, that it should be after the oil, or grace, 
given in Baptism is almost exhausted, that we come 
for refilling in Confirmation; that refilling which, 
after Confirmation, takes place every time we come 
to the Holy Communion? In this thought is bound 
up, not only the efficacy, but also the consecutiveness 
of the Church's Sacramental System. You see, then, 
that even the fact of Infant Baptism has its relation to 

[56] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

Confirmation; a relation which, it seems to me, ought 
to be obvious to the thoughtful mind. 



Now, when we are baptised, we become Chris- 
tians, Christians pure and simple, members of The 
Christian Society at large in all its Branches and 
Denominations. But — in Confirmation we become 
members of a particular Church, that Church which 
we consider to be the True Church, or a Branch of 
the True Church, founded by Jesus Christ Himself. 
We become Definite Christians. Baptism has, there- 
fore, this further relation to Confirmation; giving us 
entrance into the Christian Temple it also gives us the 
privilege of residing in the Room which we believe 
to be the Room furnished for our occupancy. I want, 
then, to speak to you very frankly about the Church 
to membership in which we are admitted in Confir- 
mation. 

The late Dean Church, of St. Paul's Cathedral, 
London, in one of the Oxford House Papers on the 
Church, has words to this effect: "There are few 
things in the world which at once appeal to the 
intellect, strike the imagination, and win the heart 
so much as the sight of a great University. Take 
Oxford, for instance. There it lies with all its grand 
history, and great traditions; generations come and 
go, but Oxford lasts on. She has her beginning in 
the long past, but her work still before her. Ever 
old and yet ever young; multiform in many colleges, 
yet one; leaning on the learning of the past, yet turn- 
ing this way and that for fresh life; the pride of the 
rich, but open to the poor. She does her work, as 
she has done it for centuries, as a great School of 
Learning and Character in the land. 

So, from the far past; with an even older origin; 
[ 57 ] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

with yet nobler traditions; ever old, and yet ever 
young; uniting the past and the future; with its many 
dioceses and parishes, yet one; the home of great 
ideas; carrying with it the Faith once delivered to 
the Saints; but ready still to receive every light that 
history or science can throw upon the truth; has come 
down to us The Christian Church. It has had a 
chequered history; it has many blots in its past; it 
has made many mistakes, for its treasures have been 
in earthen vessels; but its influence has flowed on 
through human history like a river in the sea, like 
a gulf stream flowing through the ocean; and it does 
its part now, as it has done it's part for centuries, as 
a great School of Virtue in the world." 

The Church, then, is a great Organized Society; 
flowing, as it were, through human history as a gulf 
stream through the ocean. 

Now T , (1) Is it Antecedently Probable that such a 
Society should have been formed? Is it probable 
that the Christian Ideas should have been entrusted 
to the care and supervision of an organization? 
Surely, the answer is in the affirmative. It is prob- 
able — because whenever we have an idea, in order to 
spread and propagate it in the world, we form a 
Society. There are Temperance ideas. What do the 
Temperance Advocates do? Why, they form Tem- 
perance Societies, through which the principles of 
sobriety are proclaimed and actualised among men. 
It is a philosophical fact that truth may only be per- 
petuated in its fullness, and pristine purity, through 
the channels of an organization; that unless ideas are 
encased in a Society they will become encrusted with 
error, or die. 

It is also probable — because, as Aristotle has 
said, (and if Aristotle had not said it someone else 

[58] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

would have said it, for it is a self-evident truth), 
"man is a social animal." Man is born for com- 
panionship. "No man liveth to himself, and no man 
dieth to himself." Absolute individualism is impos- 
sible in secular life, and absolute individualism is 
unthinkable in religious life. 

The Church was meant to be a Great Brother- 
hood; the greatest brotherhood that the world has 
ever seen. It has not fully achieved the original 
intention, but the fault is a human fault — it lies with 
the members of the Brotherhood, it is not involved 
in the faultiness of the original motive, and constitu- 
tion. 

It is antecedently probable, then, that such an 
organization as The Christian Church should exist. 

Now, (2) What was Christ 9 s intention? We 
have touched upon this before. Jesus did not 
come to earth merely to teach, to preach, to live a 
beautiful life, to die a self-sacrificing death, and to 
ascend into Heaven as an earnest of man's ascension. 
He came to earth with one definite purpose, a purpose 
overshadowing all other purposes, namely, to form 
a Society, through which the record of His teaching 
and preaching, and the account of His death, and 
resurrection, and ascension, might be interminably 
proclaimed among the children of men. With this 
motive in mind He separated twelve men from the 
multitude, twelve men whom He judged to be the 
right men, in the aptness of their mental assimilative- 
ness, and religious fervour, to receive and act upon 
the message which He had come to impart. With 
these men He went into solitary places apart, far from 
the importunities of the Palestinian crowds, and con- 
ducted a School. When, as Teacher, He had educated 
them to a realisation of His mission, He asked them 

[59] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

one day this question. "Whom do men say that I, The 
Son of Man, am?" The answer was, "Some say that 
thou art Jeremias, or Elias, or one of the Prophets." 
Then The Master asked, "But, whom do ye say that I 
am — you men whom I have specially trained, and 
taught in the 'things pertaining to the Kingdom of 
God' — whom do ye say that I am?" And Peter 
answered, "Thou art The Christ, The Son of The 
Living God." Then Jesus, with intense relief, the 
relief of a Professor who has examined his pupils 
and found that his instruction has not been in vain, 
replied, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jonah. Flesh 
and Blood hath not revealed this unto thee; but my 
Father in Heaven. And verily I say unto thee — thou 
art Petros, a Bock, and upon this rock — this rock of 
Apostolic Belief, not the shifting sands of the multi- 
tude's vague, indefinite, transitory enthusiasm — I will 
build my Church, my Society that I came on earth to 
found; and against its vitality the gates of Hell shall 
not prevail." This was the intention of Jesus Christ. 
He came on earth to create, and found His Bride. 
This was the fundamental motive of His Incarnation. 
Towards this end the underlying "woe is me" of His 
Ministry was directed. 

Now, (3), What is the History of the Church? 
This Body prepared by Christ was to tarry in Jerusa- 
lem until it was clothed with power from on High. 
Filled with The Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, 
it makes its start upon its age-long journey. The 
Book of the Acts contains the account of its early 
history. The Spirit came and made weak men 
strong, cowards brave, and traitors bold in righteous- 
ness. 

The Divine Society reached England in the be- 
ginning of the Second Century. About 200 A. D. 

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BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

Tertullian says, "The Church is among the Britons." 
In 239 A. D., Origen says, "Britain has one religion, 
which is the Religion of Jesus Christ." In 303 A. D., 
St. Alban, the First British Martyr, met his death. In 
314 A. D., three English Bishops were present at the 
Council of Aries, on the continent of Europe, and we 
read that they were distinguished from the other 
Bishops present at the council by the shabbiness of 
their attire. In 596 A. D., Augustine reached Canter- 
bury. He found a well organized Church, a Church 
long established, in existence in Wales. Since 
then the Church, oppressed by Rome in the Middle 
Ages, freed from the Roman yoke at the Reformation 
in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, has lived in 
England, and has journeyed across the ocean to the 
United States of America, and is inherent, in one of 
the divisions of its three-fold branch, in The Episco- 
pal Church. 

We see, then, that the Church is not a product of 
the Reformation; that it was not founded by King 
Henry the Eighth; that it is not a Protestant sect, but 
that it is a continuation of the Catholic Society 
founded by our Blessed Lord Himself. 

It is antecedently probable, then, that such a 
Society as the Church should have been formed; it 
was Christ's intention to found and establish such a 
society; and history testifies to the continuity of the 
Divine Society. 

Now, Why Am I a Churchman? I ask this 
question because I want you to know why You Ought 
to Become a churchman. Why should I not be a 
Churchman? Born of Church parents; reared in the 
Church; confirmed in the Church; ordained Deacon, 
and ordained Priest in the Church; I look upon the 
Church as my Spiritual Mother, and I am infinitely 

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BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

more proud of my membership in the Church than 
of my membership in any other purely human so- 
ciety. It is a wonderful thing to belong to a Parish 
which has existed for one hundred years, but it is a 
prideful thing, indeed, to belong to the Church which 
has persisted throughout the ages, and which has 
triumphed over the oppositions of well nigh two 
thousand years. I feel that "I am a Citizen of no 
mean City." 

I would turn the question around and ask: (1), 
Why am I not a Roman Catholic, and (2), why am 
I not a Protestant? 

(1) Why Am I not a Roman Catholic? I am 
not a Roman Catholic simply because I am an 
American Catholic. The Episcopal Church belongs 
to the Anglican Communion in birth, and ancestry; 
although now, of course, it stands altogether upon its 
own feet, and is carrying out its own destiny; and the 
Anglican Communion is a part incorporate of the Age- 
long Catholic Society. I am not a Roman Catholic, 
then, because I am an American Catholic. The word 
Catholic means universal; universal in two ways: the 
Commission is universal, "Go ye into all the world, 
and preach The Gospel to every creature," and 
universal in the sense of teaching All the Truth. I 
object to the Roman Catholics being permitted to 
usurp the title of Catholic. They have no more 
right to the title than we have. It is a sign of a 
well educated churchman when he differentiates 
between the term Roman Catholic, and Catholic. I 
am not a Roman Catholic because I am an American 
Catholic; I belong to a legitimate branch of The 
Church which teaches all the Truth, which holds as 
inviolate "The Faith once for all delivered to the 
Saints." As The Catholic Church spread its mission 

[62] 



BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

around the world each local Church was named The 
Church in, or of, that particular community, or local- 
ity. So we have The Church of Jerusalem, The Church 
of Antioch, The Church of Rome, and later The 
Church of England, and later still The Episcopal 
Church in the United States of America. Why do 
we not belong to The Church of Rome? Because we 
belong to The Church of Christ in the United States 
of America. Domineered over by Rome for cen- 
turies, at last, at the Reformation, just as a man who 
washes his face does not become a different man, the 
Church washed off the accretions which had crept 
into the Original Deposit of Faith, and remained the 
same Church, but freed from uncatholic doctrines 
and practises. 

(2) Why Am I not a Protestant? I am not 
a Protestant because I do not protest. I do not pro- 
test four things — I do not protest Church Govern- 
ment; I do not protest Church Ordinances; I do not 
protest Church Services ; and I do not protest Church 
Creeds. 

/ do not protest Church Government: I believe 
in the three-fold Ministry of Bishops, Priests, and 
Deacons. As I investigate history I find that this has 
been the method of Church government from the 
beginning. Deacons are appointed in The Acts of the 
Apostles. Priests, or Presbyters, are appointed by 
the Apostles by the laying on of hands, and, after the 
original Apostles who were the original Bishops, 
Bishops come down to us in the Scripture by the 
appointment of Timothy, and Titus; who were given 
a special commission by St. Paul which only those 
who were superior to Presbyters could execute. They 
were to receive accusations against Presbyters, and 
they were to lay hands upon Presbyters. Their duties 

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BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

as outlined in the New Testament were altogether 
different to the duties imposed upon Presbyters. St. 
Paul clearly gave an Episcopal Commission to these 
two young men. The Jewish Ministry was three-fold; 
why should not The Christian Ministry have been 
analogous? Ignatius in the First Century, after men- 
tioning the Bishops twenty times, says, "Reverence 
the Deacons as of Jesus Christ; the Bishop as the 
Father; and the Presbyters as the Sanhedrin of God. 
Without this there is no Church." Gibbon, an 
impartial historian, says, "No Church without a 
Bishop has been a fact as well as a maxim since the 
time of Tertullian and Irenaeus." 

J do not protest Church Ordinances: I believe in 
Baptism, and in the Baptism of infants, because of 
the facts contained in the former part of our Chapter. 
Moreover, St. Augustine says, "Infant Baptism was 
ever in use, and a thing delivered by the authority of 
the Apostles." 

I believe in Confirmation because of the instances 
of Philip in Samaria, of St. Paul in Ephesus, and 
because in The Epistle to the Hebrews the laying on 
of hands is called one of the elements of the Christian 
Faith. 

I believe in the Holy Communion because Christ 
instituted it; because it is the only service spoken of 
in the New Testament; because it has been celebrated 
from time immemorial in the Christian Church, and 
because it is spoken of with reverence by all the 
Christian Fathers. I do not, therefore, protest the 
Ordinances of the Church. 

/ do not protest Church Services: I believe in the 
Prayer Book for many reasons; because the Prayers 
contained therein are so beautiful, and cannot be 
improved upon; because they are ancient, and have 

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BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, AND THE CHURCH 

been sanctified by the use of the millions of Christ- 
ians who have gone before; because I refuse to be at 
the mercy of any individual Minister's power of com- 
position — it is hard enough to be at the mercy of his 
preaching capacity; and because I believe that we 
cannot improve upon the method of worship as it 
is conducted in Heaven, where the Worshippers cease 
not day and night saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord 
God Almighty." Moreover, the Jews had forms of 
prayer, and Jesus not only taught His Disciples a 
form of words, but He constantly approached The 
Father in identical phraseology. 

I do not protest Church Creeds: They are Scrip- 
tural. Every sentence of the Creeds may be proved 
by sure and certain warrant of Holy Writ. The 
motto of the Episcopal Church is, "the Church to 
teach, and The Bible to prove." Next, they are inven- 
tories of the Faith; a short and convenient summary 
of Christian Belief. They point the index finger 
against heresy, and they both instruct new comers, 
and remind old comers, as to what the True Faith is. 
The Creeds are necessary inventories for teaching 
purposes, and they are wreck charts to keep us in 
the safe channel of progress. 

It is conceivable, then, that there should be such 
an organisation as the Church; it was the purpose of 
Jesus Christ to found such an Organization; the his- 
tory of the Church points to the historically indis- 
putable fact that The Episcopal Church is a part of 
the Divinely Founded Society; and I am a Church- 
man because I am not a protestant. I am not a pro- 
testant because I do not dispute Church Government, 
Church Ordinances, Church Services, and Church 
Creeds. 



FOOT NOTE— In this chapter, dealing with the church, the Author is indebted to an "Apologia'* 
by the Bishop of London. 



THE PRAYER BOOK 



CHAPTER FIVE 

I WANT to speak with you at this time upon one of 
the glories of The Episcopal Church — the Episco- 
pal Church which you join in Confirmation. The 
Episcopal Church has many glories; such as Her 
Comprehensiveness. There are numerous schools of 
thought within the Church — there is The High Church 
Party; there is The Broad Church Party; and there 
is The Low Church Party. These parties again are 
not entirely consistent w T ithin themselves; for The 
High Church Party reaches up to The Ritualistic 
Section within The High Church Party; The Broad 
Church Party is inclusive of the Rationalistic Section; 
and The Low Church Party shades down to The 
Evangelistic Section. We almost run the gamut in 
the Episcopal Church from Catholicism to Protestant- 
ism. Within our Fold we have men of widely 
differing opinion, of diversified temperamental pre- 
dilection, but men who are at one upon the Essentials 
of The Faith. This is, of course, both a strength and 
a weakness. It is a weakness in that there is an 
apparent lack of unanimity, and so a dissipation of 
authority; it is a strength in that more people of con- 
trasted views are permitted residence within The 
Episcopal Church than in any other Church in 
Christendom. Surely, it is a glory of the Church that 
she should recognize that people are constitutionally 
differentiated, and that she should permit variegated 
conviction in non-essentials as consistent with loyalty. 

The Episcopal Church has many glories; such as 
her Dignity. Things are done decently, and in order. 
There is a reverence in the performance of her ser- 
vices which is not duplicated in the services of any 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

other religious body, not even the Roman Catholic, 
where fussiness depreciates reverence. We stand to 
praise; we sit to listen; and we kneel to pray. The 
Episcopal Church recognizes that in public worship 
we are engaged in the approach of man to God, and 
that the solemnity of the intention demands orderli- 
ness, and fearsomeness of demeanor. 

The Episcopal Church has many glories, such as 
her Mediatorial Position. She is the Church of The 
Via Media, the Church of The Middle Way. She 
occupies, as it were, the dividing territory between 
Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism. She is, in 
reality, The Church of The Godly Compromise. She 
contains within herself the undeniable marks of com- 
promise — the peculiar genius of The Anglo Saxon 
character. She is Episcopal, but not Papistical — She, 
therefore, makes an appeal to the Protestant De- 
nominations who are coming to realize the neces- 
sity of some central authority in Church autonomy, 
but who hate Popery as they hate the Devil. She is 
not Papistical, but she is Episcopal — She, therefore, 
has some claim upon the Roman Catholic Church. 
She is both Sacramental and Evangelical, and on 
both grounds she makes an allied appeal to the 
Sacramentalism of the Roman Church, and to the 
Evangelicalism of the Protestant Denominations. It 
is not an extravagant statement to make that in the 
ultimate Reunion of Christendom the Episcopal 
Church occupies a pivotal position. 

There are, then, these glories, and many more, 
but the glory to which I desire to direct your atten- 
tion, for it seems to me that it is the greatest glory 
of all, is The Glory of the Prayer Book: 

The Prayer Rook is our hand book of devotion. 
It were well for us to know something about its his- 

[68] 



THE PRAYER BOOK 

toricity, for when we appreciate its construction, and 
evolution, we appreciate it with a degree of apprecia- 
tion otherwise impossible. 

To understand the Prayer Book we must know 
something of the earlier forms from which it is 
derived. The earliest form of Apostolic Worship as 
described in the New Testament is to be found in Acts 
II, 41, "And they continued steadfastly in the apos- 
tles' doctrine and fellowship, and of breaking of 
bread, and in prayers." From the Apostles' time 
downwards we may w r ell imagine that there was some 
well known, and well remembered form of Prayer 
and Thanksgiving which, although not written down 
in words, was constantly engaged in by Christians in 
congregation assembled. To this, of course, addi- 
tions were made as time went on. The earliest 
account of the service used in the Christian Church 
is that given by Justin Martyr in "the apology for the 
Christians" which he addressed to the Emperor 
Antoninus Pius about A. D. 140. From it we infer 
that early Christian worship included: (1), the 
assembling of believers in one place at a stated time 
on a stated day, called Sunday; (2), the reading of 
the memoirs of the Apostles, or selections from the 
Prophets; (3), the delivery of a discourse, exhorting 
to the living of a life based upon the principles 
enumerated in the Apostles and Prophets; (4), the 
offering up of Prayer to God ;(5), the celebration of 
the Holy Communion. 

Originally the Bishop of each Diocese, or de- 
fined Ecclesiastical Area, had the right to arrange 
the character of the services; so we have in the begin- 
ning various service forms, or liturgies, differing in 
particulars, but true to a common original. There 
are, for instance, five celebrated early Greek Litur- 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

gies, bearing the names of St. Clement, St. James, 
St. Mark, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil. 

St. Augustine when he reached Canterbury, in 
596 A. D., found that the British Church, or The 
Church in Wales, was using a form of service which 
it had derived from Gaul. St. Augustine brought 
with him the Ritual which was then used at Rome, 
and, doubting the character of the form of worship 
which his new converts should employ, he consulted 
Pope Gregory; when he received the famous advice, 
"things are not to be loved for the sake of places; but 
places for the sake of good things." St. Augustine, 
therefore, seems to have resorted to a compromise, 
and to have combined the Gallic and the Roman 
forms of service, in the course of time, however, 
the Roman use prevailed. 

The form of service, nevertheless, was not alto- 
gether uniform, and the Bishops still used their 
liturgical discretion. We have many so-called Serv- 
ice Books. Some of these were the Salisbury Use, the 
Hereford Use, and the Uses of Bangor, York and 
Lincoln. 

After the Norman Conquest, A. D. 1066, men of 
Norman blood succeeded many of the Saxon Clergy. 
There was tumult and confusion. This drew the 
attention of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, to the 
varieties of Ritual used in the different Churches. 
He resolved to bring order and unity out of chaos, 
and to this end, remodeling the existing liturgies, he 
produced The Use of Sarum. This Use gradually 
made its way over the greater part of England. 

We come now to what we might call, speaking 
broadly, the second stage in the evolution of The 
Prayer Book. During the period between the Mis- 
sion of St. Augustine, and the era of the Norman 

[ 70 ] 



THE PRAYER BOOK 

Conquest, the main interest in the Church centers 
around the Monasteries. From these Institutions 
went forth the Missionaries who converted the 
heathen tribes. In course of time, as you all know, 
Kings and Queens lavished their wealth upon the 
Monastic Houses, and the country was literally rid- 
dled with Monasteries. In these establishments the 
day was divided between manual work, intellectual 
work, or reading, and the Service of God. 

For the systematization of the Service of God 
the Canonical Hours were observed, and included, 
besides the midnight service, Matins, or Lauds, at 
day break; Prime at six A. M., Tierce at 9 A. M., Sext 
at Noon; None at the ninth hour, 3 P. M., Vespers just 
before sunset; and Compline at bed time. The 
services at these hours consisted of Prayers, Psalms, 
Hymns, and Canticles, with lessons taken from Scrip- 
ture, or the writings of the Fathers. When combined 
they were called The Divine Office. Afterwards when 
rearranged by Pope Gregory in the eleventh century 
the Divine Office was called the Breviary. 

Besides the Breviary we must mention the Missal, 
or the Order of the Celebration of The Holy 
Eucharist; the Manual, or Book of Occasional Offices, 
which might be performed by a priest; the Ponti- 
fical, containing services which could only be per- 
formed by a Bishop, such as the Ordination Services, 
Confirmation, Consecration of a Church, etc., and the 
Hours which were said by Monks. 

As time went on a craving arose for a worship of 
God which was in the language of the people; hence 
English versions of the Hours became common, and 
also small manuals, containing the Occasional Serv- 
ices with brief instructions upon the Ordinances of 
Baptism, Confirmation, etc. This gradual anglicising 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

of the various Service Books was, however, too slow 
for the taste of the people; there was an ever grow- 
ing dissatisfaction with the part allotted to the Laity 
in public worship ; and it was determined that all the 
services should be in English, and that the people 
should have their legitimate share in all the services 
of the Church. The inherent Democracy of the 
English people gave sure and certain signs of its 
vitality. 

We come, then, to what we might call, speaking 
broadly, the third stage in the evolution of the Prayer 
Book. In the year 1525 appeared the first edition of 
Tyndale's New Testament, and in 1535 Miles Cover- 
dale's translation of the Bible. In 1538 the Epistles 
and Gospels appeared in English, and in 1539 the 
entire Bible was brought out with a preface by 
Cranmer. A proclamation in 1541 ordered that there 
should be a copy of this Bible, known as the Great 
Bible, in every Parish Church in England. This 
publication of the Scriptures in the vernacular was 
quickly followed by a revision of all Church Books, 
Breviaries, Manuals, Missals, and all else. In 1548, 
through the instrumentality of Cranmer, and other 
learned Divines, the English Order of The Holy Com- 
munion appeared, and in 1549 the first Prayer Book, 
known as The First Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth, 
was presented to the King, and the English people. 
It has been said of this Prayer Book that the com- 
pilers, "aimed at restoration, not at a complete 
revolution in public worship; and that in the process 
of attaining their aim they exercised the most careful 
discrimination between the old and the new, and 
while cutting away without hesitation the later over 
growths, they preserved with scrupulous care the 
ancient landmarks." 



[72] 



THE PRAYER BOOK 

This First Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth was 
succeeded in 1552 by The Second Prayer Book of 
Edward the Sixth. This was necessitated by the dis- 
satisfaction of the extreme reformers with the former 
production; these men did not think that the com- 
pilation went far enough in the matter of reform. 
The disaffection was largely fomented and engin- 
eered by a multitude of foreign refugees who were 
in England at this time, and who were most anxious 
that the Reformation in England should be at least 
as far reaching as the Reformation in their own 
countries. The First Prayer Book was largely revised 
in deference to their opinions. The Second Prayer 
Book, therefore, is less Catholic, and more Protestant, 
than the First Prayer Book; more of the Low Church 
way of thinking. 

The Second Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth 
was followed in 1558 by The Prayer Book of Queen 
Elizabeth. The reign of Elizabeth, following upon 
the reign of Mary, who was a Roman Catholic, 
inaugurated a fresh epoch in the religion and worship 
of the Church of England. The Church of England 
came into her own, and the Liturgy, approximating the 
predilections of the preponderating majority of the 
English people, was almost universally acceptable. 
We read that men of all minds went to their Parish 
Churches "without contradiction, or show of mis- 
liking." The Prayer Book of Queen Elizabeth was 
followed by the Prayer Book of James the First. The 
Marian Exiles, that is those who had been in dis- 
accord with the Romanistic policy of Queen Mary, 
and who had fled after her death for safety to the 
Continent, returned to England in great numbers. 
They felt that the Prayer Book in use was too sym- 
pathetic with the Ritual of the Middle Ages; they 

[ 73 ] 



THE PRAYER BOOK 

found fault with the tone of the book; with the use 
of the surplice, with the observation of Saints' Days, 
and with the custom of kneeling at the celebration 
of The Holy Communion. They, therefore, urged 
a further revision of the existing book. Their wishes 
w r ere complied with, and a further emasculation of 
the inherent Catholicity of the Prayer Book was con- 
summated. 

We have one more notable Prayer Book in 
England, namely, The Prayer Book of 1661. This 
was issued in the reign of King Charles the Second. 
The Prayer Book in all its distinctive features 
remained as before, with the exception of a few 
alterations which were introduced. The language 
was improved from a literary standpoint; the Sen- 
tences, Epistles and Gospels, and all the portions of 
Scripture used in the book were taken from the 
revised edition of the Bible published in 1611; rubrics 
were expounded; various prayers for special 
occasions were added; and a separate office was 
incorporated for the Baptism of adults, and for the 
burial of those at sea. 

The various editions, then, of the Prayer Book 
have been : The First Prayer Book of King Edward 
the Sixth, in 1549; The Second Prayer Book of King 
Edward the Sixth, in 1552; The Prayer Book of 
Queen Elizabeth, in 1558; The Prayer Book of King 
James, in 1604; and, what we might call, The Prayer 
Book of King Charles the Second, in 1661. 

The Episcopal Prayer Book is, of course, the 
direct descendant of these various Prayer Books 
which we have mentioned. The Prayer Book of 1661 
was used in the United States of America up to the 
time of the Revolutionary War, but then, as we read 
in the Preface to our Prayer Book, it was found 

[74] 



THE PRAYER BOOK 

necessary to revise the Book, and to bring it more in 
accord with American spirit, and civic nomenclature. 
The Prayer Book which we use today in the Epis- 
copal Church was issued in 1789, and revised in 1889. 
As, no doubt, you are aware, the recent General Con- 
vention of the Episcopal Church, held in St. Louis, 
in the month of October last, heard the report of 
various Committees, or Commissions, which had 
been appointed at the General Convention in 1913, 
with regard to amendments, alterations, and addi- 
tions, which it would be deemed advisable to make, 
that the Prayer Book might be in harmony with the 
genius and needs of the times. These proposals, 
many of them somewhat drastic, and far sweeping, 
have to be brought up at all the Diocesan Conven- 
tions of the Church, between this and the next meet- 
ing of the General Convention, and the voice of the 
Church as a whole will, therefore, be consulted be- 
fore any of the proposals come into force. 

Such then, in brief, is the history of our Prayer 
Book. I have not given you this summary, or synop- 
sis of events and contents, because I think for one 
moment that the details will remain in your minds; 
but because I want you to esteem and realize the 
antiquity, and evolutionary significance of the Prayer 
Book. You are to become Prayer Book Churchmen 
and Prayer Book Churchwomen, and you should ap- 
preciate to some degree the richness of the heritage 
which is soon to be yours. 

There is just one thing about the contents of the 
Prayer Book which I would bring before you; time 
forbids the dealing with other matters, and, more- 
over, the Prayer Book will, through constant use, 
familiarise itself in your minds. I want to speak to 
you about the Calendar. 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

We have a Church Year, as well as a Secular 
Year, and within that year we have days and seasons 
commemorative of events in the Life of Christ, and 
suggestive of the fundamental doctrines of our 
Religion. It were well for us to know something 
about the arrangement of the Calendar. 

The Church Year runs from Advent Sunday to 
Advent Sunday. It is divided into three groups of 
events, circling, respectively, around Christmas, 
Easter, and Whitsunday. 

The topics of consideration from Christmas to 
Whitsunday are historical, and from Whitsunday 
to Christmas are practical. 

(1) The Christmas Cycle: This includes the 
Advent Season, the period of preparation for the 
birth of Christ; the Nativity of Christ, inclusive of 
the whole Christmas Season; — that is the Circum- 
cision, eight days after, the Epiphany, and a subse- 
quent period lasting from the Epipany to Septua- 
gesima Sunday, seventy days before Easter. 

(2) The Easter Cycle: From thence to Ash 
Wednesday, forty days before Easter, is a period 
of preparation for Lent; just as Lent itself is a period 
of preparation for Easter. 

(3) The Whitsunday Cycle: This begins with 
Whitsunday, ten days after Ascension Day, that is, 
fifty days after Easter, and continues all through 
the Trinity Season up to Advent Sunday. 

Now we have many Feasts in the Church, for the 
majority of which w T e have a Collect, and an Epistle, 
and a Gospel provided. I want to enumerate the 
Festivals in the early Church. 

So long as the Church remained essentially Jew- 
ish the Jewish Feasts continued to be observed. So 
we have the Passover, and Pentecost, glorified anew. 

[76] 



THE PRAYER BOOK 

The Sabbath, or the seventh day of the week, was 
still observed, and together with it the first day of 
the week was observed as a lesser Easter. As time 
went on the Jewish element in the Church became 
proportionately smaller, and the breach between it 
and the purely Christian element became wider. Only 
those Jewish Feasts were observed which had become 
hallowed by, and transformed with, Christian signifi- 
cance. The Passover and Pentecost, with Sunday, 
were the only Festivals observed up to the end of 
the Second Century. In the course of time, however, 
fresh observances came into being; preeminently the 
Epiphany, out of which grew eventually Christmas 
Day. At the beginning of the Fourth Century, Ascen- 
sion Day was marked out for special distinction. 
Then other commemorations for great events in the 
history of our Faith were added as the years went 
on, such as the Annunciation, in the Sixth Century. 
The celebration of the anniversary of the deaths of 
the martyrs also came into vogue. Thus we have 
St. Stephen's Day, St. Peter's Day, St. Paul's Day, 
currently recognized before the end of the Fourth 
Century; also the commemoration of the birthday of 
John the Baptist. Even in the Primitive Church there 
were diversities of views with regard to festivals. 
Some urged that a Festival is a cessation from the 
world's cares and pleasures, and that a Feast Day 
is, therefore, a special means of spiritual help and 
profit. Others contended that now that Christ had 
come, and the shadows had given place to the reali- 
ties, that special times and seasons should no longer 
be observed. 

As regards the characteristics of a Festival it may 
be noted: 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

(1) A Christian Festival being what it is the 
idea of Festivals other than religious is unseemly, and 
Roman Imperial Edicts were promulgated to forbid 
public games on Feast days. 

(2) All legal business was suspended. 

(3) Attendance at public worship was de- 
manded. The Council of Elvira, 305 A. D., censures 
the man who has been absent from his church for 
more than three successive Sundays. 

(4) It was forbidden to fast on a Festival. 
Clerics fasting were to be deposed. 

(5) It was the custom on Festivals to offer pray- 
ers standing, not kneeling. 

Let us now speak of Festivals in detail : 
The Christmas Cycle: As already said the oldest 
commemoration in this group of commemorations 
was the Epiphany. The Epiphany at first was of 
wider range than at the present time; it included The 
Nativity, Epiphany proper, the Manifestation of 
Christ to the Gentiles, and also The Manifestation of 
the Trinity at Our Lord's Baptism. Towards the end 
of the Fourth Century the eastern Churches detached 
the Nativity from the Epiphany. The Epiphany is 
the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles; it be- 
speaks the Universality of the Christian Religion. It 
is also called the Twelfth Day as falling twelve days 
after Christmas; also, The Three Kings' Day; the Day 
of the Kings, who brought their gifts to the Infant 
Christ. 

The Feast of the Circumcision seems to have 
come into existence in the Sixth Century. It sug- 
gests that Jesus paid attention to current customs; 
that He came not to destroy but to fulfill. 

The Easter Cycle: Easter carries us back to 
Apostolic Times; it is a glorification and continuation 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

of the Passover. The Lamb Slain is Christ Himself. 
There was much dispute as to the time of the observ- 
ance of Easter. The present rule, arrived at after 
much disputation, is this: It shall fall on the Sunday 
next after the day when the Passover ought to be 
celebrated, i. e., on the Sunday after the Full Moon 
next after the Vernal Equinox. The English name 
Easter is from Eosteer Monath, the fourth Anglo 
Saxon month. This comes from the Goddess Eostre 
to whom festivals were addressed at that time of the 
year. 

Before Easter we have the preparatory fast of 
Lent. This is traced almost to Apostolic Times, for 
Irenaeus in 180, A. D., speaks of the differences of 
opinion as to the length of the fast. The Forty Days 
Fasts of Moses, and of Elijah, and of Christ are the 
origin of it. 

Lent is to be kept by fasting; by cessation of 
amusements; and by conscientious attempts to 
achieve higher devotion. It is, in truth, the Annual 
Revival Period of the Episcopal Church. The word 
Lent is from the Anglo Saxon Lencten, Spring. It be- 
gins with Ash Wednesday, so named because on that 
day ashes were blessed by the Bishop, which were 
then received from his hands by the Clergy and Laity 
present. The fourth Sunday in Lent is called Mid 
Lent Sunday or Refreshment Sunday — for the Gospel 
contains the account of the feeding of the five thou- 
sand in the wilderness. The fifth Sunday in Lent is 
called Passion Sunday; the Gospel has to do with the 
sufferings of Our Lord. The sixth Sunday in Lent is 
called Palm Sunday, from the incident mentioned 
in St. John XII, 13. The week from Palm Sunday to 
Easter Day is called Holy Week because the Gospel 
each day is descriptive of the incidents in the life of 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

Christ which happened during the last week of His 
purely human existence. Thursday in Holy Week is 
called Maundy Thursday. It is the Dies Mandati, the 
day of mandate — "This Do in remembrance of Me!* 
The Feast of the Ascension, forty days after Easter, 
seems to have been of Apostolic Institution. The whole 
period from Easter to Whitsunday is wholly Fes- 
tival in character. Easter is the legitimate develop- 
ment of the Passover; so Whitsunday is the legitimate 
development of another Jewish Feast — The Feast of 
Weeks, which fell fifty days after the Passover. The 
name Whitsunday means White Sunday — it is the 
birthday of The Holy Ghost in the Church which 
Jesus came to found. 

Trinity Sunday is, as its name suggests, the com- 
memoration of the Blessed Trinity. 

The Whitsunday Cycle: From now on until 
Advent we have to do with the practicalities of the 
Christian life. There are doctrines involved, such as 
the stupendous doctrine of the Trinity, that doctrine 
which is above reason, although not contrary to rea- 
son, that doctrine which is over heard rather than 
heard in the New Testament, and shadowed forth in 
the Gospel, but the Trinity has its practical aspects; 
it is applicable to human life; and it is the practical- 
ities of the doctrine that are Sunday by Sunday 
insisted upon. 

Let us think now of the Festivals of New Testa- 
ment Saints: There are two days commemorative 
of The Blessed Virgin Mary — The Annunciation on 
March 25th, and The Purification on February 2nd. 
The first is familiarly known as Lady Day, and is 
commemorative of the visit of the Angel Gabriel to 
Mary to announce the birth of the forthcoming Sav- 
iour. The second is The Presentation of Christ in 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 

the Temple. Our service for the Churching of 
women after child birth is a logical consequent of 
this. There are three other festivals of The Virgin, 
which are known as Black Letter Days; The Concep- 
tion, The Nativity, and The Visitation. 

We have one festival of Angels — St. Michael and 
all Angels — on September the 29th. This is known 
as Michaelmas. There is the birthday of St. John 
the Baptist, June the 24th. This is unusual as a 
Festival, for the Church only celebrates two birth- 
days, the birthday of Christ, and the birthday of John 
the Baptist. The beheading of the Baptist is a Black 
Letter Day. 

The origin of the commemoration of the deaths 
of Apostles and Saints is due to the practice in the 
early Church of holding services at the graves of the 
martyrs on the anniversaries of their deaths. The 
idea was that their virtues should be known and 
enumerated for the edification of the lives of those 
who came after them. We have, therefore, the fol- 
lowing days with Collect, Epistle and Gospel pro- 
vided for each. St. Matthew, St. John, SS. Peter and 
Paul, St. James the greater; SS. Philip and James; 
St. Andrew, St. Barnabas, St. Simon, and St. Jude; 
St. Matthias, and St. Thomas. For a few other New 
Testament Saints, other than Apostles, special forms 
of service are provided; St. Mark, St. Luke, St. 
Stephen, The Holy Innocents, and St. Mary Magdalen. 
All the other Saints in the Episcopal Church Calen- 
dar are Black Letter Saints. 



Surely, then, the Church is "Wise unto salva- 
tion;" for she brings before us a photographic view 
of the great events in the Life of Christ, and of the 
relation of those events to our own lives; and she 

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THE PRAYER BOOK 



emphasizes the whole circle of Christian doctrine, 
applying the teaching of the Faith to the individual, 
and the world. There is nothing haphazard, nor 
preferential about the Church's system; she believes 
in, and practices, the whole Truth, and nothing but 
the Truth, for the whole man. Let us reverence her 
as the Mother who, "takes out of her Treasure House, 
things both old and new." 



[82] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 



CHAPTER SIX 

1WANT at this point to begin with you the consid- 
eration of the Holy Communion. The wonderful- 
ness of Confirmation does not reside within itself 
so much as it resides within the compass of the 
Supernatural Privilege of the Blessed Sacrament to 
which it grants admission. It is the bejewelled 
Gateway which leads from the dusty, sun-scorched 
Highway of Life into the verdant fields, and the 
foliaged Trees with their restful shade, of the 
Heaven-wrought, and Heaven-wooed Park of the 
Holy Communion. 

Let us achieve, if possible, the Atmosphere of a 
Sacrament. The Definition of a Sacrament in our 
Catechism is as follows : "What meanest thou by this 
word Sacrament?" "I mean an outward and visible 
sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto us, 
ordained by Christ Himself, as a means whereby we 
receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof." 

The word Sacrament is a classical word, and if 
has two well-defined uses. It means either, (1) A 
gage of money laid down by parties who went to law 
with one another, or, (2) The military oath taken 
by soldiers to be true to their Country, and their 
Leader. The Idea common to both these meanings 
is that of a sacred pledge. As an ecclesiastical term 
we find its true home in North Africa, which was the 
first Latin-speaking Church. It signified a Religious 
Rite, or a Religious Truth; when the rite or truth 
possessed an inner meaning. Through the centuries 
the word changed in the entirety of its significance, 
as words have a habit of doing, until it came to stand 
for the two great Rites, or Religious Truths ordained 

[83] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 



by Christ Himself, namely Baptism, and the Supper 
of The Lord. 

We have, as suggested, two Sacraments in the 
Episcopal Church — Baptism, and the Holy Com- 
munion. In the Church of Rome there are Seven 
Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, Or- 
ders, Matrimony, the Holy Communion, and Extreme 
Unction. The difference between the two Churches 
is largely a question of definition. We believe that 
Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and 
Unction, are sacramental in their character; but that 
they fall short in that they were not ordained by 
Christ, or in that they are lacking in the outward 
sign, or the invisible grace. We do not know, for 
instance, that Confirmation was ordained by Christ 
Himself. It may well have been — for when The 
Master took little children into His arms and blessed 
them He may have been instituting Confirmation, 
and, as a matter of fact, Confirmation seems to have 
been of the practise of the Church from Apostolic 
Days — but the actual institution of Confirmation by 
Christ is not mentioned in the New Testament Scrip- 
tures. The same is true of what the Roman Catholics 
call Extreme Unction. St. James in his Epistle com- 
mends the rite, but we have no record that Jesus 
inaugurated it, or approved of it. Moreover: the 
Roman Catholics have departed in their practice from 
the original intention of Unction. The person was 
to be anointed with oil in the faith that such anoint- 
ing, together with prayer, would restore the invalid 
to health; but the Roman Catholic Church has made 
the Unction Extreme; it is only to be performed upon 
the sick man or woman when there is no chance of 
recovery; when he or she is "in extremis;" and is in 
the nature of an anointing unto death. So is it with 

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THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

the other three rites, or ceremonies; they fall short 
of our definition in one way or another — our defini- 
tion which seems to be in accord with the developing 
consciousness of the Church throughout the ac- 
cumulating ages. 

Now, as our Catechism says again, "How many 
parts are there in a Sacrament?" "Two; the out- 
ward visible sign, and the inward spiritual grace." 

Let us, then, in realistic fashion, achieve the 
nature of a Sacrament. Jesus Christ was a Sacra- 
ment in Himself. "He thought it not a thing to be 
snatched at to be upon an equality with God, but He 
took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was 
made in the likeness of man." "The Word was made 
flesh." Christ's Humanity was the outward and 
visible sign of His Divinity. His Body was the out- 
ward and visible sign of His Soul. 

Jesus was Sacramental in His Words and Acts: 
(1) In His Words. He was the greatest Topical 
Preacher, and the most fond of illustration, who ever 
lived. He taught largely through the instrumentality 
of Parables. You will notice that He was forever 
pressing the commonest and most familiar sights and 
sounds into the service of the Spirit. He showed that 
the Universe was, as it were, the Veil upon God's 
Face; the vast transparency through which the Eter- 
nal ever shines. He spiritualised ordinary objects; 
He sanctified all the existences and occurrences of 
nature; with "the light that never was on land or sea." 
"In the sun-set touch, in the fancy from a flower bell" 
He portrayed God. To Him "every common bush 
was afire with God." Just as we are trying to get 
people today to realize that there are no longer For- 
eign Missions, but only Home Missions; that the King- 
dom of God is one and indivisible, and that in seek- 

[85] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

ing first the Kingdom of God all other things will be 
added, Parish maintenance, and all the rest of it; so 
Christ assimilated, so to speak, Heaven and Earth, 
God and Man, and manifested the unity of the human 
and the divine. Earth to Him was merely the out- 
ward and visible sign of the Creator's Grace, and 
Beauty. So, He takes the leaven, and the pearl, and 
the sheep, and the sheep-fold, and the coin, and the 
wheat, and the candle, and the signs of the sky such 
as cloud and sunshine, and the bushel measure, and 
the lamp with its oil, etc, etc., and points His moral, 
and adorns His tale. The whole of Creation be- 
spoke to Him the presence and character of the 
Lord of the Worlds Who had brought creation into 
being, and Who ever maintains creation in equipoise. 

Take His Parable of the Shepherd and the Sheep. 
Everyone in Palestine, an essentially agricultural 
community, was familiar with the sight of the Shep- 
herd on the Hills watching throughout the long east- 
ern day his sheep. The sight was a common sight; 
the experience was a familiar, everyday, experience. 
Jesus used the common sight, the familiar experi- 
ence, as the outward sign of the invisible truth which 
He was anxious to impress in the minds and con- 
sciences of His hearers. The Shepherd He said is 
God; the sheep are the children of men; and as the 
Shepherd loves and cares for his sheep, and will 
even leave the peace abiding sheep in the well worn 
enclosures of their habitual occupation, and go out 
to the arid places, and even to the mountain's top, to 
find the one sheep that has strayed, so God loves man 
in the aggregate, and the welfare of the individual is 
inestimably precious in His sight. 

So we might run through the entire list of His 
parables, speaking of the Sower who went forth to 

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THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

sow, of the House built upon the rock, and so forth, 
and show that to Jesus the outward was the figure and 
symbol of the inward, the material the sign of the 
spiritual grace. Jesus was unquestionably sacra- 
mental, or parabolic, in His words. 

(2) In His Acts: The outward and visible sign 
of the inward and physical effect produced is 
conspicuous in the Miracles, or Acts of Christ. 
Take the restoration of sight to the blind man. 
"He stooped down, and took clay, and spat upon it, 
and anointed the eyes of the blind." The stooping 
down, the taking of the clay, the spitting upon the 
clay, and the anointing, or rubbing of the spital- 
ized clay upon the eyes of the blind man, were 
all outward signs of the inner result which He was 
producing. Jesus voluntarily elected to be sacra- 
mental in His actions. He was God, and so it would 
have been possible for Him to consummate his desire 
by mere thought, or wish, or will, but He CHOSE to 
be sacramental, He chose to employ the outward to 
achieve the hidden. Take the Ordination of the 
Disciples. "He breathed on them, and said, receive 
ye the Holy Ghost." The breathing was the outward 
sign of the grace bestowed in ordination. Take the 
Raising of Jairus' Daughter. He went into the room 
where the maid was; He stooped down, and took her 
by the hand, and lifted her up, and said, "I say unto 
thee arise." The putting of Himself in contact with 
the maiden, the clasping of her hand, the words He 
used, were all outward and visible signs of the 
restoration from death unto life; were all, in fact, 
the external evidences of His curative and unseen 
power. Take the Master's behaviour at the grave- 
side of Lazarus: In this historic event He was 
doubly sacramental. He said, "Lazarus come forth;" 

[87] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

there you have the outward verbal expression of His 
omnipotent power; but He also "wept" — He gave the 
manifest token of the internal grief, and compassion, 
which surcharged Him to overflowing. Take the resur- 
rection of the widow of Nain's son from the dead. 
"He reached out His hand, and touched the bier, and 
said 'Young man arise';" and He restored him to his 
mother. The reaching out of His hand, the touching 
of the bier, the command, were all sacramental in 
their nature. Take the Cleansing of the Temple. 
Jesus knotted a small cord into a whip, and drove 
the money changers out of the sacred precincts. The 
making of the scourge, and the driving out of the 
men, was the outward sign of His most real authority 
as Son in His Father's House. 

As with the Parables, which have to do with the 
words of Christ, so with the Miracles, which have to 
do with the acts, or performances, of Christ, we 
might multiply the incidents almost indefinitely, at 
any rate to the full record of the occurrences, and 
demonstrate the fact that Jesus was sacramental in 
His doings. 

Jesus, then, was Himself a Living Sacrament, and 
Jesus was Sacramental in His speech, and in His 
deeds. He embodied, and expressed, the relation be- 
tween the outward and visible sign, and the inward 
and spiritual grace. 

You and I are Sacraments. Our bodies are the 
outward and visible signs of our souls. How true 
this is. Take Personality. There is nothing in the 
world harder to define than Personality. The 
Psychologists, and the Metaphysicians ,within whose 
provinces comes the related definition of Personality, 
are, to say the least, misty and unsatisfactory in their 
attempts to characterise the reality, and the differen- 

[ 88 ] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

tiation, of Personality. Still, we know from ex- 
perience that there is nothing more actual, potent, 
and influential than Personality. Personality is the 
sum total of the visible and the invisible. It breathes 
the obvious and the hidden. It expresses the tangible 
and the mysterious. It depends upon circumstances, 
and yet it possesses circumstances. It is subject to 
condition as a slave is subject to his master, and yet 
it laughs at condition as an Overlord plays with his 
cringing Sycophant. It is localised, and yet it is uni- 
versal; limited, and withal catholic. It is conglom- 
erate of face and feature and physical form, and the 
"something over," the "extra plus," which distin- 
guishes it from all other personalities. It is a glori- 
fied antithesis; an animated contrast. Surely; we 
may say that it is Sacrament in its most palpable ex- 
position. Take Character; our face is the outward 
and visible sign of our character. The expression of 
the eye; the contour of the features; the set of the 
mouth; the lines upon the forehead; the poise of the 
neck upon the shoulders; all these apparent evidences 
are a portrayal, at any rate to the experienced ap- 
praiser of look and shape, of the hidden man within. 
Why; we may even tell a person's character by the 
formation of the ear! I remember some years ago 
walking up and down the terrace of the Kursaal at 
Bad Nauheim, in Germany. I was wrapt in my own 
thoughts, and drinking in as a thirsty man the mes- 
sage of the Orchestra which was playing in a Stand 
nearby, when, suddenly, I felt a detaining hand upon 
my arm, and a voice arrested me with the words, 
"Forgive the unconventionality of my introduction; 
but your ear interests me!" I looked at my inter- 
locutor in amazement; thinking naturally that I had a 
lunatic to deal with; but I beheld a man of obvious 

[89] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

culture, sanity, and refinement. My new found friend 
linked his arm in mine, and joined me in my recur- 
rent parade. He said that for many years he and 
his family had made a study of deciphering character 
by the shape, and size, and, what I might call, "hang" 
of the ear. They had necessarily begun with the in- 
ductive method. That is to say they had made de- 
tailed note of the ears of the friends whom they 
knew well, and whose characters they had reason to 
believe through intimate experience were thus and 
so. This knowledge formed the basis of their 
science. Variation of the ears within their circle 
of acquaintance had enabled them to form certain 
antecedent probabilities of reality. With accumu- 
lated acquaintanceship they were able to adjust, 
and relate, and enlarge, the range of their hypo- 
theses. I was, of course, skeptical of the value of such 
diagnosis, and as much as said so. My friend then said 
that he would give me practical demonstration of the 
plausibility of his Ear Philosophy! He proceeded to 
delineate my character. What he said was, natur- 
ally, good and bad. He pleased, and at the same time 
displeased, my vanity. He showed up my weak- 
nesses without mercy, or evasion, and he bolstered 
up, with becoming courtesy of expression, the latent 
consciousness of my virtues ! It was the most extra- 
ordinary exposition of myself that I have ever list- 
ened to, and, of course, clergymen, from the very 
nature of their calling, have to listen to many com- 
plimentary, and uncomplimentary remarks, more or 
less inclusive, addressed to the subject of their ex- 
cellencies and deficiencies! That man knew me bet- 
ter than I knew myself; he possessed an intimacy of 
knowledge concerning me which no member of my 
own household has ever possessed before or since. 

[90] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

It was positively uncanny. The man is now dead; 
for my part I am glad that he is dead, for it is some- 
what perilous to have other people know us as well 
as we know ourselves, and I am glad for his part too 
— for he was suffering at that time from the worst 
form of heart disease, and his life was a perpetuated 
burden to him. Now, my point, obviously, is this: 
even the ear is an outward and visible sign of the 
inward, unseen, character of which we are the ac- 
credited owners. Even the ear is sacramental in its 
nature! Let us think more of ears in the future than 
we have been accustomed to think of them in the 
past; for to our own ears, apparently, we must per- 
force be true! 

Yes; we may tell character by the ear. We may 
also tell character, and in this connection we need not 
trouble overmuch about the inductive method, for, 
literally, he who runs may read, by the walk. I re- 
member that my immediate "Boss," when I was in 
business in New York City, relied almost solely upon 
a man's walk in estimating his fitness for position. 
If the man came slowly into the office where the 
manager dispensed life or death, employment or non- 
employment, slowly in actual rate of speed, and drag- 
ging one foot after the other, he would scarcely take 
time to hear the stranger's petition. That man was 
doomed to disappointment from the outset. But when 
a would-be employee walked into the room with 
brisk step, each foot apparently clamoring for the 
immediate privilege of its mate, it was ten chances to 
one that a new name would be enrolled on the Com- 
pany's Pay List! Look at the people who pass you 
on the street. Take note of the rapidity of their loco- 
motion; regard the directness of their progress; ob- 
serve whether the heel, or the toe, or the sole of the 

[91] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 



foot, strikes the ground first; and you have an almost 
infalliable index to present achievement, and inher- 
ent capability. Our body, then, as a whole, and our 
face, perhaps, in particular, is an outward and visible 
sign of the inward, and spiritual grace of character. 
You and I are living, palpitating, Sacraments! 

We are also Sacramental in oar Words: Let a 
man speak to us for five minutes and we know 
whether or not he is an educated man. People are 
taking note of us all the time. They are judging us 
not merely by what we say, but by our method of 
speech. Silence is indeed oftentimes golden, for 
speech may be brass! Every Public Speaker; every 
Preacher; every Conversationalist is, through the use 
of vocabulary, and through the very fact of gram- 
mar, and of accent, being judged every hour of the 
day, and you cannot fool all the people all the time! 
But speech in the absolute is sacramental. There is 
a hidden, unseen process of thought going on within 
our brain. It is impossible for any ordinary person 
as a rule, although there is such a thing as thought 
transference, and some people are peculiarly psychic 
in their makeup, to know what we are thinking about 
until we open our lips and portray our thought in 
speech. Words are the outward and visible sign of 
mental imaginings. 

We are Sacramental in our Deeds: Our doings 
are the palpable expression of our inherent capacity. 
Has a man executive ability? Watch him at work! 
Is a man sequential in his perspective of situation? 
Observe his deeds ! Is a man capable of not merely 
"holding down his job," for that is a sinecurism of 
effort, but is he capable of transforming the oppor- 
tunities of his specified task? Watch him in the 
daily grind! "By their fruits ye shall know them." 

[92]. " 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all 
thy might" — yes; and in the doing of it you shall be 
known beyond peradventure for what you are ! Why; 
the very selection of our life's work, as well as the 
manner in which we customarily perform that work, 
is, to say the least, suggestive of our preference and 
ability. We "get a line on" a man when he is a 
Physician, or a Lawyer, or a Minister of the Gospel, 
or a Merchant, and the outline of the differentiated 
portrait is filled in by the way in which the man 
practises medicine, or law, or theology, or business. 
Our secret is not so secret as we thought; as a matter 
of fact our secret is no secret at all — what we are is 
as open as the day! 

You and I, then, are living, embodied Sacra- 
ments, and, even as Christ Himself, we are sacra- 
mental in our words, and in our deeds. 

Not only is Christ a Sacrament; not only are we 
sacraments; not only is Christ sacramental in His 
words and deeds; not only are we sacramental in our 
speech, and in our work; but — nature is a Sacrament; 
and Nature is Sacramental in its manifestations. 

As we have already said, Nature is the outward 
and visible sign of nature's God; Creation is emble- 
matical of the Creator. Bishop Butler's argument, 
which was an old argument, an argument as old as 
human history, restated and ramified for a polemi- 
cal purpose, still holds good. At the bottom of 
things; as a first cause, or reason to which all other 
causes, or reasons, are subsidiary, as a cause, or rea- 
son, to which all other causes, or reasons, make 
obeisance; at the bottom of things we still believe 
primarily in God because we realize that some one, 
or some power, greater and other than man is 
responsible for the existence, and marvelous varia- 

[93] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

tions of the natural world. The mountains, and the 
hills, and the valleys, and the rushing rivers, and the 
inland seas, and the expansive oceans, and the con- 
stellations of the Heavens, portray the marvelous 
handiwork of God. "Pleasant are Thy courts below" 
— Science, or, rather scientific knowledge, has not 
robbed us of the recognition that the spaces of the 
universe are His, not ours; His in their origin, as well 
as in their continuance. All things "praise Thy 
name, in earth, and sky, and sea" — His "is the power, 
and the majesty, and the glory." The world in which 
we live is The Great Sacrament. It is of all outward 
and visible signs the greatest outward and visible 
sign of the inward and spiritual grace. The Great 
Architect of the Universe ever draws our wonder and 
our admiration to the footstool of His Supernatural 
Magnificence through the House which He has built, 
and wherein He, as Most Gracious and Hospitable of 
Hosts, permits us to dwell. 

But not only is Nature a Sacrament; it is also 
sacramental in its manifestations. Take the sunset 
for example. "A series of ethereal vibrations, purely 
mechanical in origin, and, as such, other than they 
seem. The total effect is to create in us an optical 
illusion, making the sun and not the earth appear to 
move. And yet as men look at it thoughts and feel- 
ings arise in their minds and hearts which affect life 
in countless ways. Lovers are united; worldlings are 
purified; saints see heaven opened; youth is fired 
with high ideals; age is consoled with lofty hopes. 
In a short half hour it is all over; the gold has melted 
into grey; but countless lives meanwhile have been 
temporarily, or permanently, influenced, and the 
course of tomorrow's world is modified and moulded, 
by the setting of today's sun!" 

[94] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 

You grasp, then, I trust, the Sacramental idea. 
You have achieved, I hope, the Sacramental atmos- 
phere. In Christ, in man, and in the universe, the 
outward and visible sign is related to the inward and 
spiritual grace, or truth, or content. Is it not becom- 
ing, and of the nature of things, that the Sacramental 
should loom large in the sphere of Religion? Is it 
not fitting that this far-stretching law — for it is so 
altogether universal that we may call it a law — 
should project itself into the intimacies of man's re- 
lationship with God? Fed as we are by personality, 
by speech, by deeds, should we not in the realm of 
the soul's life accept our food from the personality, 
the speech, and the works of God? Is not the Sacra- 
mental system of the Church, considered in its abso- 
lute truth and application, in harmony with Divine 
method of government? If I am to be initiated into 
the mysteries of life with and in Christ, the Son of 
God, shall I not expect such an outward and visible 
sign as water, and anticipate the recitation of the 
name of The God into whose Being I am committed? 
If I am to enter into the fullness of Communion with 
the Divine Author of my life, shall I not presume that 
the unseen miracle will be consummated through that 
which is appreciable to taste and sight? Will there 
be no sky to my aspiration, no visible boundaries to 
my view, no bread and wine to the Mystical Body and 
the Mystical Blood? Surely, He is a God of Order and 
of Habit, and He will not bewilder my finite intelli- 
gence with His ability of infinite resource. What 
He has led me to expect in His Son, and in myself, 
and in my fellows, and in the world in which my lot 
is cast, He will bring to the culminating point of its 
expression in the apex of His association with me ! 

Now to sum up : The definition of a sacrament 
[ 95 ] 



THE SACRAMENTAL IDEA 



is "An outward and visible sign of an inward and 
spiritual grace, given unto us, ordained by Christ 
Himself." The word sacrament means a gage of 
money, or an oath. In ecclesiastical usage, a usage 
which has evolved in its significance throughout the 
centuries of Christian history, it means a rite or cere- 
mony restricted to the most important rites or cere- 
monies of the Christian religion. There are two 
sacraments in the Episcopal Church — Baptism and 
the Holy Communion; in the Roman Church 
there are seven sacraments. The difference between 
these branches of the Catholic Church is largely a 
difference of definition. Jesus Christ was Himself a 
sacrament — His body the outward sign of His soul, 
His humanity the outward sign of His divinity. Jesus 
Christ was sacramental in His parables, or in His 
words, and in His miracles or in His deeds. We are 
sacraments, body and soul, and we are sacramental 
in our speech, and in our work. Nature is a sacra- 
ment — a vast looking glass, through which, as in a 
mirror darkly, we see the Face of God; and Nature is 
sacramental in its manifestations. 

The outward sign in baptism is water, and the 
Name of the Trinity; the inward grace is regenera- 
tion, new birth, adoption into the family of God. The 
outward sign in the Holy Communion is bread and 
wine, also the words of consecration; the inward and 
spiritual grace is the Life of God, and in some mys- 
terious sense, defying human definition, the Being 
of God. In the Holy Communion the sacramental 
through life, and in the universe, comes to its chief- 
most portent — to the coping stone of its achievement. 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION 



CHAPTER SEVEN 

IN the last chapter we endeavored to achieve the 
atmosphere of a Sacrament. I would now con- 
sider The Holy Communion. 
What is the Holy Communion? There are many 
answers to this question; naturally so, for The Holy 
Communion is as manifold and as multiform as 
Jesus Christ Himself. 

To many people, in fact, to many denominations 
of Christians, The Holy Communion is just a memor- 
ial. Jesus, in the institution of The Last Supper, said, 
"This do in remembrance of me" — so there are those 
to whom The Holy Communion is simply a memorial 
of the death of Christ. It is this, of course, but it is 
also much more. It is a good thing, and it is essen- 
tially true, to receive The Holy Communion in com- 
memoration of the dying and the death of Jesus 
Christ. Suppose that your mother had asked you 
upon every anniversary of her death day to place 
white flowers upon her grave, would you not deem 
it a duty, and a privilege to obey her injunction? 
We ought, then, to regard our Lord's deathbed mes- 
sage as a bounden obligation — "This do in remem- 
brance of me." Every time we receive the Blessed 
Sacrament we are to picture to ourselves the cir- 
cumstances of our Lord's death, and all the incidents 
that led up to it during His last week upon earth. 
There is the triumphant acclaim of the multitude on 
Palm Sunday; the hosannahs, and the spreading of 
the palm branches, and all the joyful accompani- 
ments of His theatrical — theatrical so far as the 
crowd was concerned — entrance into Jerusalem. 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION 

There is the arrest in the Garden, and the long drawn- 
out and mind-racking trial before Pontius Pilate. 
There is the sentence of death, and the physical 
weariness of the carrying of the Cross, assisted at 
length by Simon the Cyrenian, to the place called 
Golgotha. Then there is the crucifixion itself; the 
rude, rough Cross, fixed against the eastern sky; 
the straining, fainting form of the Son of God; the 
fury of the sensationalised spectators; the fidelity of 
the little knot of friends, edging ever nearer to the 
Loved One; the wonderful Seven Words, so all in- 
clusive in their scope; the actual death; the earth- 
quake, and the dispersing multitudes; the darkness 
upon the face of the whole earth; the twinkling lights 
of the Holy City in the near distance; the piercing of 
the side of Jesus; the awful silence that follows on 
after death; the taking down of the body from the 
Cross; the burial in the rock-hewn sepulchre of 
Joseph of Arimathea; and then the brooding still- 
nesses, and the ever wakeful stars. All these circum- 
stances should be visibly present to our mind every 
time we receive the Precious Body and the Precious 
Blood; together with the realization, "This hast Thou 
done for me; what have 1 done for Thee?" 

But the Holy Communion is infinitely more than 
a memorial of the death of Jesus Christ. In the 
words of delivery the Church puts it into the mouth 
of the Priest to say, "The Body of our Lord — take 
eat," and "The Blood of our Lord — drink ye." The 
Holy Communion is Food for our Souls. What does 
our natural food do for our natural bodies? It is 
sacramental in its effect. The outward sign is food; 
the inward result is strength. Let us illustrate this. 
Throughout the morning you have been desperately 
iusy; demands have been made upon your mental 

[98] 



THE HOLY COMMUNION 

and your physical vitality. By luncheon time you 
are feelingly exhausted. You wonder how in the 
world you are ever going to meet the afternoon's ob- 
ligations. You sit down at the luncheon table, and 
you eat bread, dead bread; you eat meat, dead meat; 
you drink water, water to all intents and pur- 
poses dead; and slowly, but realizedly, your fatigue 
begins to disappear, and the blood commences 
once more to flow consciously through your veins. 
You arise from the table refreshed as a giant is 
refreshed with wine, and are avowedly ready to 
perform the immanent and prospective duties 
awaiting your attention. What has happened? In 
the deepest sense we do not know. We are only 
gloriously aware that dead food, and dead drink, 
taken into our live bodies have produced strength. 
Even the physician cannot explain fully how this has 
come about; how this extraordinary miracle has been 
consummated. He is able to elucidate the laws 
which govern digestion; but the actual "how" is be- 
yond his definition, and analysis. 

So is it with the Holy Communion, which is the 
Food of our Souls. Through contact with the world, 
and the ever perpetuated lusting of the flesh against 
the spirit, and the lasting fighting with "wild beasts at 
Ephesus," our spiritual vitality becomes exhausted; 
our souls grow aweary even unto death. But we 
feed upon the prescribed Soul Food, the Body and 
the Blood of Jesus Christ, and our spiritual nature is 
quickened as with magic touch, and our soul fatigue 
disappears as a dream in the night. How does this 
transformation come about? We do not know. The 
result is evident, but the process is hidden with Christ 
in God. The fact, however, is all that we need to 
care about, and it is sufficient vindication of the 



THE HOLY COMMUNION 



Scriptural words, "Except ye eat the Body, and drink 
the Blood of the Son of Man ye have no life in you." 

The Holy Communion, then, is a Memorial of the 
Death of Jesus Christ, and the Holy Communion is 
a Food for the Soul. It is, however, something more 
than either, or both, of these things — it is a Com- 
munion of Christian People all over the world with 
one another, and it is a Communion of Christians on 
Earth with those who have passed beyond the veil. 
It emphasizes not merely the individual principle, but 
the corporate principle as well; the two principles 
which the Christian religion, unlike all other re- 
ligions, differentiates and harmonises at the same 
time. Jesus taught that the individual is precious 
in God's sight, and that the Church, the congregation 
of individuals, is His bride — that salvation is within 
the Society. 

Now, the Corporate Witness of Christianity is 
the Common Meal. We know how secular organiza- 
tions hold banquets to manifest their mutuality, and 
how family spirit is engendered and expressed there- 
by. We know, also, how friends honour friends with 
hospitality, and that fraternity is cemented about the 
festive board. So Christians have a Common Meal. 
They partake of the same Food; the members of an 
Episcopal congregation actually drink out of the 
same cup, a loving cup which is called the Chalice; 
and their fraternal relationship is consummated in 
a mutual act. 

Surely, this stupendous fact should do away with 
Localism — a horrible word, suggestive of an appal- 
ling condition. Localism is that ignorant spirit, due 
to nescience, or lack of travel, or crass civic egotism, 
that makes men and women speak as though the 
diminutive spot of ground upon which they happen 

r 100 i 



THE HOLY COMMUNION 

to dwell were the only portion of the habitable globe 
worthy of consideration. In the Holy Communion, 
the Common Meal, civic, national and racial barriers 
are obliterated, and all people, of whatever class or 
colour, breathe the invigorating atmosphere of God's 
out-of-doors. 

Surely, this stupendous fact should do away with 
Parochialism — a dreadful word, which is significant 
of a dreadful state of affairs resident within the 
Kingdom of God. Parochialism is that narrow 
minded, ungodly partisanship which makes the mem- 
bers of a Parish speak as though their Minister, and 
their societies, and their peculiar way of doing things, 
were superior to all other Ministers, and societies, and 
methods employed by rational people. In the Holy 
Communion we are Catholic, not Congregational, 
Christians. Space, numbers, failure and success, are 
immersed fathoms deep, even as the drop of rain is 
absorbed in the limitless deeps of the ocean. 

Surely, this stupendous fact should do away with 
Denominational Pharisaism. We have, as Christians, 
our differences of opinion and conviction, and natur- 
ally so, for history may not be interpreted by diverse 
temperaments in the same way; but the Holy Com- 
munion is the common food of all Christians, and in 
the mere act, apart from any interpretation of the 
act, we are drawn close together as members of the 
family of our Heavenly Father. 

Surely, this stupendous fact should do away with 
all Class Prejudice. The poor and the rich, the aris- 
tocratic and the plebeian, meet together at the same 
Sanctuary Rails, drink out of the same cup — and for 
this reason pre-eminently I disbelieve in the advis- 
ability of individual Communion Cups — partake of 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION 

the same Bread, and all earthly distinctions are ob- 
literated in Heavenly association. 

The Holy Communion, then, is a communion of 
Christian people all over the world with one another. 
It is the crucifixion of Localism, of Parochialism, of 
Denominationalism, and of Social Inequality. 

But, the Holy Communion is also more than this : 
It is the highest expression of the Communion of 
Saints; the meeting point of Earth and Paradise and 
Heaven; a communion of Christians on earth with 
Christians who have passed beyond the veil. You 
are sad without your loved one; you crave the touch 
of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is 
still. Well, in a real sense your loved one is closer 
to you than ever before. The departed partake of 
the ubiquity of God; they are in all places at all 
times; and so you possess them for your own without 
any separation of time or space. But the moment 
when you and they are in fullest intercourse, the 
second when you are indissolubly one, is when you 
drink of the Wine on earth, and they drink of the 
Fruit of the Vine in their Father's Kingdom. All 
that they eternally are is in Christ, and in the Sacra- 
ment of fhe Altar Christ comes to you, and they in 
Christ. Think of this, my friends; let it be your last- 
ing comfort in bereavement. You have a Trysting 
Place with the beloved — not at the cemetery, but at 
the Altar of God. 

The Holy Communion, then, is a Memorial; the 
Holy Communion is a Food for the Soul; the Holy 
Communion is a communion of Christian people 
all over the world with one another, and a com- 
munion of Christians on earth with Christians in 
Paradise. 

It is also Intercourse with the Living Jesus. The 

[102] 



THE HOLY COMMUNION 

world has never been regenerated by the sight of a 
dead peasant upon the Cross; Christianity in its pro- 
mulgative, vitalising power, is based upon the truth 
of an Ever-Living Saviour. Not only Maundy 
Thursday, a Christ facing death; not only Good Fri- 
day, a dying and dead Christ; but Easter Day, a Liv- 
ing Christ, is bound up in the meaning and the effi- 
cacy of the Blessed Sacrament. 

In the Holy Communion we come into contact, 
and into assimilation, with a Living, Vibrant, Life- 
Bestowing Personality — the Son of God. 

When you study the Gospel Story you find that 
people were always touching Jesus, and that Jesus 
was alwaj^s touching people. "He took the little chil- 
dren up in His arms, Laid His Hands upon them, and 
blessed them." The suffering woman in the crowd 
pressed up to Jesus, and Touched the hem of His gar- 
ment. The crowd was forever surging about the 
Master, and the Master was forever giving of His 
Spirit to the crowd. The blind man is restored to 
sight; for Jesus "took clay, and spat upon it, and 
anointed the eyes of the blind man." The leper is 
cleansed of his disease; for Jesus reached out His 
hand, and touched the leper. All through the record 
of the life of Jesus we find contact between Him and 
the needy of body and of soul; with the result that 
through contact with Him the need was ever met. 

Now, in the Holy Communion we Touch a Living 
Jesus. Our blindness, our spiritual sicknesses, our 
leprosy of sin, are all dealt with by the Divine Phy- 
sician. The Hand which made the worlds; the Hand 
which blessed the children; the Hand which cured 
the sick, and raised the dead; the Hand which was 
lifted in benediction upon the Palestinian multitudes; 
the Hand which brake the bread; the Hand which 

[103] 



THE HOLY COMMUNION 

was nailed upon the cross, clasps our hand. All the 
efficacy of the Life from which immortality flows, as 
a river from the sea, is offered for our strengthening 
and emancipation. "I have felt Jesus;" "I have 
touched Jesus, and Jesus has touched me;" "I have 
tasted Jesus;" "Jesus is in me, and I am in Jesus;" 
all this we may say in deepest truth when, after sin- 
cere preparation, we have partaken of the Holy Com- 
munion. 

Finally: In the Touch of Christ in the Holy Com- 
munion is included the Forgiveness of Sins: "The 
Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all our sin." 
The Cross brought about the Atonement, the At-one- 
ment of God with man; it placed us in a forgiveable 
relationship; a reservoir of cleansing from iniquity 
was banked up for the lasting demands of humanity; 
and in the Holy Communion we receive the ever- 
present individual application of that historical re- 
demption. 

We all know the exceeding sinfulness of sin — 
"the remembrance is grievous, the burden is intoler- 
able." We long time and time again for the oppor- 
tunity of a fresh start. In the Holy Communion this 
ambition is achieved. With the requisite qualifica- 
tions — "ye who do truly and earnesly Repent you of 
your sins, and are in Love and Charity with your 
neighbors, and Intend to lead a new life, following 
the Commandments of God, and walking henceforth 
in His Holy Ways" — we are as spotless after we have 
received the Blessed Sacrament as we were when the 
Lava of Regeneration was poured upon our fore- 
heads at Baptism. What we have got to do is to 
really believe that we are forgiven. We have prac- 
tically so little trust in the mercy of God. Unlike the 
poet, we fail, apparently, to realize that: 

r mi i 



THE HOLY COMMUNION 



"The love of God is broader than the measure of 
man's mind; 

And the Heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully 
kind." 

We carry around with us the conscious load of a 
lifetime's sin; we are broken down with the remorse 
of a decade's shortcomings; we are perpetually over- 
whelmed with the leaden pack of a vistaful past of 
unrighteous living; until the very heart is taken out 
of us, and the joy of religion is conspicuous by its 
absence. We do not trust God enough. "I have 
sinned," said Navid to Nathan, and immediately 
there came the response, "The Lord hath put away 
thy sin." Forgiveness is not merely a reality, but it is 
an instantaneous achievement. The Holy Com- 
munion is the instantaneous forgiveness of all our 
sin; in detail, as sins, and in general, as sinfulness. 
What an extraordinary comfort this fact would be 
did we but appreciate it ! It would resolve our cul- 
pability into the sins which we commit between each 
reception of the Body and the Blood of Christ. We 
should live consistently the Forgiven Life, and carry 
with us upon our very faces the smile, the gladsome 
smile, of "the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us 
free." 

Now to sum up. The Holy Communion is a 
memorial of the death of Christ. In it, we do keep 
the Lord's death till He come. We are to picture all 
the attendant circumstances of the Sacrifice on Cal- 
vary for us men and for our redemption every time 
we approach the Sacred Mysteries. 

The Holy Communion is the divinely ordained 
Food for the Soul. Our spiritual life is quickened, 
stimulated and maintained by feeding upon that 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION 

"diet" laid down by the Saviour of Souls — Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God. 

The Holy Communion is a communion of Chris- 
tians all over the world with one another; irrespec- 
tive of locality, or parish, or denomination, or social 
caste. The Holy Communion is the communion of 
Christians on earth with Christians in Paradise. It 
is the focussing point of the Church Militant and the 
Church Restant. It is the hand clasp of the Quick 
and the Dead. The Holy Communion is intercourse 
with the living Jesus; we come into touch with His 
revolutionising Personality, and we are the recipients 
of benefits which He alone is able to bestow. Above 
all, practically considered, the Holy Communion is 
the forgiveness of sins. We are given the oppor- 
tunity of a fresh start; the privilege of a clean sheet. 



f 106] 



HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 



CHAPTER EIGHT 

I WANT to touch upon the Holy Communion Serv- 
ice in the Prayer Book. 
Some parts of the Holy Communion Service are 
hoary-headed with antiquity. This is, of course, to 
be expected; for Christianity is an historical religion, 
and the Holy Communion was the only public service 
in the Early Christian Church. These are some of 
the more ancient portions of the Liturgy: The Sur- 
sum Corda, "Lift up your hearts. We lift them up 
unto the Lord. Let us give thanks unto Our Lord 
God. It is meet and right so to do." The Ter Sanctus, 
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and 
earth are full of Thy glory; Glory be to Thee, Lord 
Most High." The Gloria in Excelsis, "Glory be to 
God on high," etc. These three parts of the Service 
are found in all the old Liturgies, both Greek and 
Latin, and take us back, perhaps, to Apostolic Times. 
St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, martyred in A. D. 
258, mentions the Sursum Corda, and it seems even 
then to have been an ancient form. It is discovered 
in the Canons of Hippolytus, A. D. 200, and was, in 
all likelihood, in existence for many years before 
that date. The Canons of Hippolytus also give the 
Words of Administration, "This is the Body — this is 
the Blood of Christ." It seems to me that this an- 
tiquity alone gives the Service importance and solem- 
nity; for it comes to us hot with the breath of the 
millions of Christians who, having fought a good 
fight, now rest from their labours. 

I would ask you, in this matter of the explanation 
of the Service, to picture to your minds the archi- 
tectural "lay out" of a Church. The first thing that 

[ 107 ] 



THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

we notice as we come into an Episcopal Church is 
the prominence of the Altar. Our eyes travel along 
the length of the Nave, and the Chancel, and Sanctu- 
ary, and are arrested by the sight of the Holy Table. 
The Altar is the objective of our gaze. This is char- 
acteristic of the Episcopal Church. She places 
uttermost reliance upon the Sacraments; upon the 
Grace that comes from God alone. In the Churches 
of the Denominations the most conspicuous article of 
furniture is the Pulpit, or Preaching Desk, and im- 
mediately behind that, as a rule, the Organ, and Choir 
Stalls. The emphasis is placed upon the Preaching 
of the Word. The reliance is focussed preeminently 
upon human interpretation of Divine Evangel. 

We will follow, then, in our instruction, the 
architectural plan of the Church: 

(1) There is The Porch. In the Porch we 
gather ourselves together for entrance into the Sacred 
Building. The Holy Communion Service has a Porch. 
It is known as the Prayer for Purity. Just as we wipe 
our feet before we cross the threshold of the Church, 
so, in the Holy Communion Service we cleanse the 
thoughts of our hearts for what is to follow. "Al- 
mighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all 
desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; 
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration 
of Thy Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love Thee, 
and worthily magnify Thy Holy Name; through 
Christ Our Lord." 

You see, we are bound for the Altar; it is upon 
the Altar that our intention is focussed; and we are 
preparing ourselves for the consecrated approach. 

(2) There is The Nave. The Nave stretches 
from the Porch to the Chancel steps. The word 
means Ship; it is the same word from which we get 

[ 108 ] 



THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

Navy. The Figure of the Church as a Ship fighting 
its way through the tempestuous waves of earthly 
life into the peaceful harbour of Heaven is to be 
found all through the record of Christian Preaching. 

We have left the Porch, then, and entered the 
beginning of the Nave. Immediately the Church 
brings us to a standstill. She puts up, as it were, a 
fence in front of us; the Fence of the Ten Command- 
ments. "My Child," She says, "stay where you are. 
You cannot advance further until you have examined 
your deeds and motives in the light of God's Regu- 
lations, and found out whether there is anything in 
your life unrepented of which makes you unfit to 
approach nearer the Sacred Presence." 

And now we go into the Pew closest at hand, and 
kneel down for the Collect and the Epistle, and stand 
up for the reading of the Gospel. The Collect, 
Epistle and Gospel for the day, together with the 
Prefaces for special occasions, are the only movable 
parts of the Service. At the conclusion of the Gos- 
pel we come out into the Aisle once more, and con- 
tinue our march along the Nave towards the Altar. 
At this point, however, the Church lets down another 
Fence. This is the Fence of the Creed, and emblaz- 
oned upon it are the words, "My Child, you must 
remain where you are until you have analysed your 
Belief. Your orthodoxy must approximate the 
Standard enunciated by Jesus Christ." Once more 
the Fence is drawn up, and as we are tired in our 
journey we sit down where we are, and listen to the 
Notices of Meetings, which are given out by the Min- 
ister, and the Declaration of Holy Days. The Sermon 
now follows. This is the only place in our Prayer 
Book where a Sermon is ordered. It was included 
here as an Instruction upon the Holy Communion. 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

Is there not a danger now-a-days of giving the Ser- 
mon an importance which it was never intended to 
have? Are we not apt to place the help which varies 
with the individual intelligence, and capacity for 
preaching, above the help of the Sacrament, which 
no stupidity, nor unworthiness, of the Priest may 
depreciate, or lessen? 

After the Sermon we stay where we are whilst 
the Offering is taken up. This was the interval in the 
Ancient Church where the congregation brought the 
Bread and the Wine to be used in the Service to the 
Celebrant; the Celebrant offering the contributions 
upon the Altar. This custom had, of course, to be 
changed as the number of worshippers increased, 
the confusion becoming too pronounced. The con- 
gregation, however, still offer the Bread and the Wine 
indirectly; for the Elements are bought with the 
money given by the Congregation through the regu- 
lar channels of the Church. We have to remember 
that, technically, there is a difference between the 
Collection, and the Offertory. The Collection is the 
taking up of the monetary contributions of the 
people; the Offertory is the presentation of the Bread 
and the Wine, which have been reposing heretofore 
upon the Credence Table, or the little Table by the 
side, on the Altar. The Collection is the giving, 
of our Alms to God. It is a sacred business. Money 
honestly earned is the equivalent of life lived. A 
day's money given to God is a day's work spent in, 
God's service. We should be conscientious in the giv- 
ing of our means to the Giver of All Good Things. 
The Collection is presented to the Priest at the Altar, 
and he in turn presents it, with audible, or inaudible 
prayer to God. 

Now we kneel down in the pew where we have 
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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

been during the giving out of the Notices, and the 
hearing of the Sermon, and the collecting of our 
money, and follow the Priest in the Prayer for the 
Church Militant. This is, perhaps, the most beauti- 
ful, and comprehensive, Prayer in the Prayer Book, 
The whole Fighting Church on Earth is remembered 
in all its divisions before the Throne of Grace; the 
Universal Church; all professing Christians; Chris- 
tian Rulers; Bishops, and other Ministers; and all the 
Congregation present, together with the troubled, and 
the sick, and the needy, and those who are in adver- 
sity. There is also a commemoration of the Dead. It is 
remarkable, on the face of it, that there should be 
only one commemoration of the Dead in the Prayer 
Book. In the Reformation we lost much as well as 
gained much. The First Prayer Book of King Ed- 
ward the Sixth contained other mentions of the Faith- 
ful Departed. These other prayers were left out as 
time went on in deference to the drastic convictions 
of the extreme wing of the Reforming Party in Eng- 
land. There is no gainsaying the fact that grotesque 
errors, and strange purgatorial ideas, had, through 
the ages, crept into the original deposit of faith; but, 
in the militant endeavor to purify, much that was good 
was given up along with much that was bad. The 
fact that we have only one mention of the Dead is 
a distinct loss to the devotional fullness of the Prayer 
Book. We pray individually for our Loved Ones who 
have gone before us into the Land of God; but when 
we come to Church we are only permitted to pray 
for our Loved Ones in a short sentence! It is incon- 
sistent, to say the least! 

After the Prayer for the Church Militant we have 
two Exhortations. One is the long Exhortation to be 
read before the Greater Festivals of the Church's 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

Year to remind people of their bounden obligation of 
receiving the Blessed Sacrament; the other is the 
brief exhortation which is read at every celebration 
of the Holy Communion. It contains the requisite 
qualifications for a worthy reception of the Body and 
Blood of Christ. "Ye who do truly and earnestly 
repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity 
with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, 
following the commandments of God, and walking 
from henceforth in His holy ways." Repentance, 
Charity, Resolution; these are the three demands 
made upon him, or her, who would approach the 
Mysteries of Life. The emphasis is laid upon the 
Will; Intention is paramount. The Will is our own 
concern; even God is powerless to manipulate the 
Will. We must be possessed of the Vitalising Wish 
to be better in the future than we have been in the 
past. 

Well, now, let us see where we are; where we 
have attained unto thus far. We have passed through 
the Porch, and have asked God to purify the thoughts 
of our hearts. We have walked along the Nave on 
the way to the Altar, and have examined our Con- 
duct by the Ten Commandments; we have prayed 
the Collect, and listened to the Epistle and Gospel; 
we have approached nearer the Altar, and have been 
called upon to analyze our Faith. We have heard 
the Notices, and the Sermon. We have given of our 
Money in the Collection, and have participated in- 
directly in the Offertory. We have joined in the 
Prayer for the Church Militant. We have mused upon 
the Brief exhortation, and have resolved upon a new 
life in the days to come. It is a toilsome journey, this 
journey to the Altar; at every step we are becoming 
more and more conscious of our unworthiness to 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

achieve our destination. So, what do we do now? Why, 
naturally, we fall down upon our knees, and pour out 
to God the confession of our sins. This Confession 
in the Holy Communion Service is much stronger 
than the Confession at Matins, and Evensong. The 
latter is intended for every day. In our daily pil- 
grimage we contract defilement, and, to live the for- 
given life, we must be forgiven every day. "He that 
is clean needeth not save to wash his feet." Period- 
ically, however, at the Holy Communion Service we 
are, so to speak, to wash our entire body. Let us 
make the most of this Confession of our sins, for 
"confession is good for the soul," and it is comfort- 
ing to feel that at stated intervals we make a complete 
acknowledgement of our guilt before God. So many 
people recite the Confession out of pure convention; 
it is a matter of words with them; and no more; and 
so they lose the peace of thorough contrition. 

After the Confession we have the Absolution. 
Could we but be persuaded that our confession is sin- 
cere, and that the Absolution is real, what an incent- 
ive we should possess toward righteous living. We 
are so often overburdened, and rendered nerveless 
spiritually, through the realization of our culpability. 
Whereas were we but to take God at His word, and 
to believe that "He willeth not the death of a sinner," 
we should be spurred on to careless, or care-free, 
endeavour. When the Magistrate, or the Officer ap- 
pointed by the State, pronounces pardon to the pris- 
oner, does not the prisoner accept the release with 
alacrity? Why, then, should we be hesitant upon the 
fact of God's Pardon pronounced by His appointed 
Minister? This Absolution in the Communion Serv- 
ice is stronger than the Declaratory Absolution in 
Morning and Evening Prayer, and rightly so, for it 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

keeps pace with the extra fullness of the preceeding 
confession. 

We are loitering, then, in our approach to the 
Altar, for we are preparing for the consummation 
of our journey, and are making ourselves worthy of 
the Wonderful Gift. Now, we come to the Comfort- 
able Words. We need comfort do we not? This 
business of receiving God is an awe-inspiring busi- 
ness, and we were hardly cognisant of the difficulties 
involved. These Comfortable Words breathe the 
fullest salvation possible. We have Our Lord's 
Words, we have St. Paul's Words, and we have St. 
John's Words. Our Souls are refreshed with the 
consciousness that Our God is a Merciful God, and 
that He ever liveth to make intercession for us. 

After this we have the Sursum Cor da. In the 
recognition of our forgiveness we lift up our hearts 
to God, and return thanks to Him for His goodness. 
Then, as a natural consequence, we indulge in an out- 
burst of praise. With Angels and Archangels, and 
all the Company of Heaven, we laud our Gracious 
God; revering Him as Thrice Holy in His Triune 
Majesty, and attributing to Him all the Glory on 
Earth and in Heaven. 

With all our humiliation, nevertheless, there is 
still something lacking. We are even yet possessed 
of the recognition of our unworthiness, and so we 
participate in the Prayer of Humble Access. This 
is the only Prayer in the Service where the Priest is 
commanded to kneel as well as the people. "We 
do not presume to come to this Thy Holy Table, 
O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, 
but in Thy manifold and great mercies." It is the 
last outpouring of our finite limitation before we 
accept the plentitude of Infinite Capacity, and the 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

Priest is involved in the recitation of sinfulness to the 
same degree and extent as the people. 

Now, we have almost reached the Altar. We are, 
as it were, in the Chancel, and the Goal of our ambi- 
tion is within immediate reach. The Consecration 
Prayer is now said by the Celebrant, and in some 
mysterious way, for the transformation is beyond 
human definition, the Bread and the Wine become 
possessed of the potency of the Body and the Blood 
of Jesus Christ. 

We come up reverently to the Altar after this, 
and consummate the object of our graded exertions. 
We are "safe home at last," and the miracle of for- 
giveness, and of life's renewal, is achieved. What 
feelings surge within our hearts; what thoughts 
crowd the corridors of our minds; what resolves 
importune our Wills! It is indeed "good to be 
here," and we erect our Tabernacle of Residence 
within the Pastures of the Redeemed. Like a Runner 
at the end of a hard won race; like a Soldier after 
strenuous battle; like a Voyageur who has crossed 
tumultuous waters; we find our Prize, our Rest, and 
our Harbour, in the Arms of God. 

After the Reception we all join in the Lord's 
Prayer — the Pattern Prayer which Jesus taught His 
Disciples when they came to Him and said, "Lord, 
teach us how to pray." Before and after the great 
crises of the soul's experience there is no Prayer like 
unto "Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be 
Thy Name." Then we have the Prayer of Thanks- 
giving. We "most heartily thank" God for the Spirit- 
ual Food wherewith He has fed our hungry souls, 
and we implore Him to keep us in the Way Ever- 
lasting. This is followed by the Gloria in Excelsis; 
a shout of reverential gratitude to Him Whose Good- 

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THE HOLY COMMUNION SERVICE 

ness, and Kindness, have been so far above our 
deservings. The greatest Gratulatory Hymn in 
Christian Hymnology. Finally; there is the Blessing, 
"The Peace of God, which passeth all understanding, 
keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and 
love of God, and of His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord; 
and the Blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you, and re- 
main with you always." Amen. 

Surely, a most wonderful ending to the most 
wonderful of all wonderful Services! 



[116] 



PREPARATORY ADDRESS TO THE HOLY 
COMMUNION 

Psalm XXIV. 

The earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is: 
the compass of the world, and they that dwell therein. 

2. For he hath founded it upon the seas: and 
prepared it upon the floods. 

3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord : 
or who shall rise up in his holy place? 

4. Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure 
heart: and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity, 
nor sworn to deceive his neighbour. 

5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord : 
and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 

6. This is the generation of them that seek him ; 
even of them that seek thy face, Jacob. 

7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift 
up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall 
come in. 

8. Who is this King of glory: It is the Lord 
strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle. 

9. Lift up your heads, O ye gates: and be ye lift 
up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory shall 
come in. 

10. Who is this King of glory: Even the Lord 
of hosts, he is the King of glory. 

This Psalm was, in all probability, an anthem 
chanted by Holy Pilgrims as they journeyed to Jeru- 
salem and ascended the Hill of Zion. And it was an 
anthem sung antiphonally, one Choir challenging 
another Choir as they walked the plains and ascend- 
ed the heights. 

We can almost follow the marching of the Pil- 
[ H7 ] 



PREPARATORY ADDRESS 

grims in this Psalm, and mark the different stages of 
the journey. 

On the level ground, as they approach the Holy 
Hill, the companies halt, and surveying the profus- 
ion of nature on all sides, the choirs sing in unison, 
"The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; 
the world, and they that dwell therein." 

Then, the march is resumed, and at the base of 
the Hill, the Companies halt again. They look up- 
wards, and see the Temple crowned upon the 
heights. The first choir challenges, "Who shall as- 
cend into the Hill of the Lord, and who shall stand 
in His Holy Place?" The other choir answers, "He 
that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath 
not lifted up his mind unto vanity, nor sworn to de- 
ceive his neighbor. He shall receive the blessing of 
the Lord, and righteousness from the God of His sal- 
vation." 

Then, the choirs in unison sing, "This is the gen- 
eration of them that seek Him; even of them that 
seek Thy Face, O Jacob." 

Then the Army climbs the Hill, and arrives at 
the locked gates upon the borders of the City. The 
choirs challenge, "Lift up your heads ye everlasting 
gates, and the King of Glory shall come in." They 
are quite sure, you see, that the King of Glory is in 
their midst. From wdthin the Temple Choir re- 
sponds, "Who is this King of Glory?" And the im- 
portunate Pilgrim Choirs respond, "The Lord, strong 
and mighty." Again the interrogation from within, 
"Who is this King of Glory?" And the triumphant 
affirmation of the besiegers, "The Lord, strong and 
mighty; the Lord of Hosts; He is the King of Glory." 
Then the gates are opened, and the weary pilgrims 
rest wdthin the city. 

[118] 



PREPARATORY ADDRESS 



This, I take it, is the structural form of this 
Psalm. The Pilgrims are on their way to the Holy 
City to worship God in His appointed Place. 



I want to mingle with these Pilgrims; especially 
as they linger at the foot of the Hill, and ask, "Who 
shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord?" For we are 
bound for Zion, and on Communion Sunday we shall 
stand in the Holy Place. 

How were these Pilgrims admitted into Jerusa- 
lem? What are the requirements of those who at 
the present time would climb the Hill of God? 

There were of old, and there are today, four re- 
quisites, four essentials: Clean hands, innocent lips, 
a pure heart, and a regal soul. 

Hands, heart, lips, soul. Two of these are out- 
ward things — hands and lips. Two of these are in- 
ward presences — heart and soul. The former belong 
to the realm of conduct; the latter belong to the realm 
of character. The former suggest morality; the lat- 
ter suggest spirituality. The former are rivers, and 
the latter are springs. 

Clean hands, innocent lips, a pure heart, and a 
regal soul — these determine our fitness to approach 
the Holy Hill, and to be accepted as the guests of 
God. 

We notice at once that if we attend to the inner 
requirements, the outward essentials will take care 
of themselves; that if we regulate the springs the 
rivers will flow of their own accord. I would begin, 
therefore, with the Soul. 

(1) A Regal Soul. The Lord's Supper is at the 
summit of the Hill, and if we would make the ascent, 
and be partakers of the feast, we must have a soul 
that is not lifted up unto vanity. 

[119] 



PREPARATORY ADDRESS 

What does the Psalmist mean by Soul? Let 
us suppose that my being, my personality, were to 
find its figure and symbol in a house. What room 
in the house would be the soul? It is an awkward 
analogy, because our houses are built without any 
thought of the soul. But let the illustration stand. 
What room in the house would be the soul? We 
have a bathroom for the body. What room would 
be the soul's room? 

Cardinal Newman when he lived, as he did 
during the greater part of his life, in Birmingham, 
had a room in his house which he called the Oratory. 
It is generally so in Roman Catholic residences, and 
retreats. There is a room in the house set apart for 
the soul. Cardinal Newman's Oratory was the room 
where he offered prayer, praise, and adoration; 
where systematically he exercised his spiritual func- 
tions; where he saw God, tasted God, touched God. 
So the Soul is that compartment in our being fur- 
nished with our complement of spiritual powers in 
which we commune with God, and exert our faculties 
of worship and mystical approach. The soul is that 
room in the house of our being where we hold com- 
munion with God in spiritual discernment and 
praise. 

Let us Look Into our Oratory. What is going on 
there? We know what is going on in the kitchen — 
the cooking of food, the washing of platters. We 
know what is going on in the dining room — feasting; 
eating, and drinking. And in the drawing room, 
social fellowship and edification. And in the study, 
mental assimilation; and in the bed room, sleep. 

But, what is taking place in the Oratory? It is 
possible for the Oratory to be misused, and for the 
spiritual powers resident therein to be abused. 

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PREPARATORY ADDRESS 

At Matlocks, in the midlands of England, there 
is a beautiful country church, Gothic in design, and 
grey with the passage of the centuries. But look 
within and what do you behold? A Power House! 
Instead of the Altar, the Sanctuary and the Choir, 
— machinery. The Holy Place has been degraded. I 
know a building in Nova Scotia erected as a church 
60 years ago, and dedicated to the poor and the 
stranger forever, and today it is a moving picture 
theatre ! The Holy Place has been degraded. 

So this Oratory, this Room of Being, where the 
spiritual faculties exercise their functions, this soul 
of ours, may be debased and defiled. How? The 
Psalmist tells us — by being lifted up unto vanity. 
What a picture! In the Oratory there is an idol, and 
the soul is kneeling at its brazen feet. Here is Vanity 
high and lifted up, and here is the soul reaching 
upwards, going after vanity. In my Oratory all the 
faculties and capacities of my soul may be bending 
before vanity. My veneration may be paying homage 
to vanity. My august sensibilities of worship may be 
degraded into petty superstitions. Many people in 
their Oratories are kneeling before the number 13, or 
the sixth day of the Week, Friday, or the fifth month 
of the year, May. All the mystic powers, august and 
transcendental, may be grovelling in the dust upon 
the oratory floor. Whose Throne is in our Oratory; 
for the Oratory is the Throne Room of being; whose 
Throne? Vanity, pride, worldliness, popularity, 
ease? What are the spiritual faculties bending be- 
fore? O happy are we if in our Oratory we are 
bending before the Throne of God. "Whatever idol 
I have known, help me to tear it from Thy Throne." 
"Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord? He that 
hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity." 

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PREPARATORY ADDRESS 

(2) A Pure Heart. Again I would emphasize 
that if the soul be not lifted up unto vanity, the heart 
will perforce be pure. The Oratory is the center of 
personality, and if our spiritual powers are bending 
before God then the heart and all else, every member 
that we have, will of necessity be worthy. Worship 
is worthship, and worthship is worship. If the water 
that I would drink be impure it will not remedy 
matters if I turn the tap. The adjustment must take 
place at the source of supply. So, the waters of life 
flow from the soul, and as the soul is, so are the 
constituent elements of being. 

If a man lifts up his soul unto vanity, that man 
is as shallow as a saucer, in thought and feeling, in 
heart and mind. His emotions are easily stirred, even 
as water in a saucer is stirred. There is nothing 
great about his mental range; there are no tidal 
currents of feeling. In proportion as the soul is 
lifted up unto vanity there is carelessness, and lack 
of wisdom. If there is frivolity in the Oratory, then 
there will be flippancy in the life. But, if in the 
Oratory we really pray, then, the heart is safe. For, 
more and more am I convinced, my friends, that 
prayer is not preparation for battle — prayer is the 
battle. If in our morning prayers we get control of 
our tempers, and strangle our jealousy, and crush 
our lust, and murder our uncharitableness, the day 
is won, the heart is free to love. Great thinking, deep 
feeling, firm willing — all issue from the Oratory. 

"Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord?" 
"He that hath a pure heart." And to have a pure 
heart is to be possessed of a regal soul! 

(3) Clean Hands. Are your hands soiled; 
stained with impurity, defiled by sin? Then, you may 
not wash them in the bathroom; they must be 

[122] 



PREPARATORY ADDRESS 

cleansed in the Oratory. The lava is spiritual, not 
material. Clean hands, even as a pure heart, are 
consequent upon a condition of soul. 

Hands ! O, there is so much about hands in the 
Bible. The hands of Christ! I once preached a 
sermon about them. I hope to have the chance to 
preach another. Hands of Blessing — "He took the 
little children up in His Arms and blessed them." 
Hands of healing — "He put forth His Hand, and 
touched the Leper." Hands of Intercession, nailed 
upon the Tree — "Father, forgive them." Such hands; 
hands of merciful dispensations. 

We may have hands like the Hands of Christ; 
hands of tenderness and gracious kindnesses. Com- 
munion Hands, fit to receive the Body of Christ. But, 
we must wash them in the Oratory. "Who shall 
ascend into the Hill of the Lord?" "He that hath clean 
hands." 

(4) Innocent Lips. "Hath not sworn deceit- 
fully." Again I would say that we need have no 
concern about the lips if the soul is rooted in the 
love of God. We are told that for every idle word 
we speak we shall have to give account in the judg- 
ment. But, it is impossible to keep a seal upon the 
lips. The river will mount up until it bursts all the 
barriers that would impede its flow. We must have 
recourse to the springs. Of the fullness of the heart 
the mouth speaketh; but if the heart be governed by 
the Oratory Life then it will utter of its own accord 
kind words, good natured words, words of truth and 
consecrated expression. 

The way to hallow speech, and the only way to 
hallow it is to hallow the Lord. If the tree be good, 
the fruit will partake in its quality of the parent 

[ 123 ] 



PREPARATORY ADDRESS 

stem. Clean hands, a pure heart, innocent lips, all 
issue from the Oratory. 

Before, then, we climb the Mount of God, and 
enter the Holy Place, and participate in the Sacred 
Feast, let us go into the Oratory, and turn out the 
idols there, and bend our stubborn wills in obeisance 
to the divine will. So, and only so, shall we be ac- 
counted worthy to receive the Blessed Sacrament, 
and, reaping forgiveness, be possessed of abundant 
life. 

Let the Master find but one Throne in our Soul 
Room — one Throne, with Himself upon it." All hail 
the power of Jesus' name; crown Him Lord of All." 



[124] 



WORSHIP 



IT is because the preponderating majority of men 
and women hold erroneous views upon the all im- 
portant subject of Worship that our Churches — 
speaking generally — are only half filled, and that, 
in this period of the world's history, Christianity and 
Conduct are almost synonymous terms. God forbid 
that we should decry the service of man to man, or 
depreciate in minutest degree the blessedness of the 
present achieved realization that man is indeed his 
brother's keeper; but, as Disciples of the Christ, 
anxious for the experience and expression of the 
Kingdom of God, we are to place "first things first," 
and the Second Commandment of the Law must not 
be permitted to overshadow the paramount obliga- 
tion of loving Our God with heart, and mind, and 
soul. It is impossible to think of anything more es- 
sential to the true welfare of the Church of God than 
that Her members should conceive the right idea of 
Worship. Were it feasible to define the matter with- 
in small compass, and to have the definition assimi- 
lated by our immediate constituency, our Local 
Jerusalem would indeed be "a praise in the Earth." 

Let us, then, ask ourselves this simple, and yet 
important, question — what is Worship? — and strive 
to answer it in language that all may understand. 
* * -* * * 

We call our Churches "Houses of Worship." 
We know that we are invited to "fall down and 
worship." We speak glibly of our services of Pub- 
lic Worship. But, alas, we are accustomed, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, to use the word with foggy 
ideas as to its true meaning. 

[125] 



WORSHIP 



Worship is an offering made by the creature to 
the Creator. It is the recognition that man, all that 
he is now, and all that he may ever be, individually 
and collectively, potentially and actually, belongs to 
God. "We are His people, and the sheep of His 
pasture." To worship, therefore, is not to get; but 
to give; it is the act of pouring forth, not the act of 
drawing in. When we worship we "offer and pre- 
sent ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reason- 
able, holy, and living sacrifice." 

Now, see what this means. We constantly hear 
people say that they have given up attending such 
and such a Church because they "get nothing out of 
it." They went to Church for food, and not receiv- 
ing any food — the Preacher being, at any rate as re- 
lated to their needs, a poor provider — they either gave 
up going to any Church, or they changed their al- 
legiance from a Church of starvation to a Church of 
"fat things on the leas!" The attitude is, of course, 
all wrong, and arises from a mistaken conception 
of the purposes of Public Worship. If we go to 
Church, to any Church, with the thought of gaining 
a blessing uppermost in our minds the chances are 
that we shall get no blessing at all. We are thinking 
of self rather than of God, and of our own happi- 
ness instead of "the honor due His Holy Name." 
Only when we leave selfhood at home, and go to 
Church with the thought of God mentally regnant 
may we expect to achieve a blessing. 

To understand what Worship is we must under- 
stand what the Church is. The Church is not a mere 
aggregation of men who meet together by mutual 
compact within the four walls of a sacred edifice. 
The Church — that is the Catholic Society, of which 
the Episcopal Church is part of a legitimate branch 

[126] 



WORSHIP 

— is the Bride of Christ; flesh of His flesh, and bone 
of His bone. People who go to Church meet, there- 
fore, as members of a Mystical Body. They associate 
together as a Covenanted People. Worship is the 
voice and action of the Christian Community claim- 
ing its portion in the Mystical Body of Christ. "His 
praise is in the great congregation." It is because 
we do not appreciate what true worship is, nor the 
intimate relation of Worship to the Church, and of 
the Church to Worship, that our Houses of God are 
not thronged to the doors at our highest form of 
Worship, our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, 
that focussing point of heaven and earth, the Euchar- 
istic Service, where the One Mediator, the Lamb as 
it had been slain, awaits upon His Altar Throne the 
homage of the souls He has redeemed. It is because 
we do not understand aright what worship is that we 
presume to commit the sacrilege, for one may not 
call it by a milder term, of turning our backs upon 
the Christ Who comes to His own, that His own may 
receive Him, in the Prayer of Consecration. The 
Holy Communion is not merely a means of grace for 
ourselves — a means of acquiring strength for our- 
selves from the life of Christ — it is preeminently an 
act of worship and sacrifice to Almighty God through 
the surrender of ourselves to His Sovereignty. He 
offers Himself, it is true, but we also offer ourselves; 

without this reciprocity no offering could be made. 
***** 

Worship, then, is the surrender of ourselves to 
God; the expressed recognition on the part of the 
creature that he belongs, in the entirety of his per- 
sonality, body, soul, and spirit, to the Creator. 

Let us think of this "presenting of our bodies." 
Man being body as well as soul the body has much 

[127] 



WORSHIP 

to do with the acceptable worship which man offers 
to God. There have, therefore, grown up in the 
Catholic Church certain pious customs which are, to 
say the least, helpful in our adoration of the Incar- 
nate God, and which have, most of them, the au- 
thority of our present Prayer Book. 

First: there is Kneeling in Prayer, and Standing 
in Praise. You remember, perhaps, what Liddon 
says in his Elements of Religion, "There are bodily 
postures which actually forbid heavenly exercises to 
the soul. To lounge in an arm-chair is inconsistent 
with the tension of thought and will which belong to 
the worship of the Holy God." Man is a spirit tab- 
ernacling in a body of sense. The posture of the 
body, has, therefore, much to do with the forth- 
willing of the soul. We must enlist the lower facul- 
ties of our nature in aid of the higher. 

Second : There is the bowing of the head as an 
act of reverence towards the altar, on entering and 
leaving a church. There is authority in our own 
Anglican Communion for this. Canon VIII, passed 
by Convocation in 1640, says, "We heartily commend 
it to all good and well affected people, that they be 
ready to tender unto the Lord their reverence and 
obedience, both at their coming in and going out of 
Church, according to the most ancient custom of the 
Primitive Church in ancient times." The Altar is 
the Throne of Christ, because He vouchsafes His 
Sacramental Presence in the Eucharist. We do not 
bow — and many are under this erroneous impres- 
sion — to the Cross on the Altar, but towards the Al- 
tar; in honor of Him Whose the Altar is. Surely this 
is natural, and not, as is the opinion of some, papis- 
tical. In the House of Lords in England when the 
King is present, sitting upon the Throne, subjects 

[128] 



WORSHIP 

kneel, and do homage to him. When the Throne is 
vacant, they bow in passing it. Sailors salute the 
quarter-deck, and soldiers salute the Colors; not 
merely as an expression of loyalty to the Quarter- 
deck, and Flag, but to betoken the fact that they are 
sworn liegemen of a Country for which, if needs be, 
they are ready and willing to lay down their lives. 

So in the Catholic Church these outward signs 
form, and always have formed, a part of worship. 
They are, of course, useless in themselves, but they 
are helpful in the great sacrificial act of offering our 
bodies to God. Thus, we bow our heads when the 
Name of Jesus is mentioned because the Church en- 
joins it in the XVIII Canon of 1604. The Canon is 
as follows : "When in the time of Divine Service the 
Lord Jesus shall be mentioned, due and lowly rev- 
erence shall be done by all persons present." We 
also bow our heads in the Glory be to the Father, in 
honor of the Blessed Trinity; before whose Presence 
we are told in the Bible the Angels veil their faces. 
It is right and fitting on the same count to bow our 
heads, or kneel, in the Nicene Creed at the words, 
"And was Incarnate," in remembrance of Our Lord's 
great humility in becoming man. We receive the 
Body and Blood of Christ in the attitude of kneel- 
ing, for as St. Augustine says: "No man eats this 
Flesh unless he first adores." It is a Catholic cus- 
tom also to make the Sign of the Cross, with the 
right hand from the forehead down to the breast, 
and from the left shoulder across to the right, at the 
conclusion of the Creed. As early as the year 200, 
Tertullian wrote : "At every going in and out, in all 
the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon our 
foreheads the sign of the cross." We are well aware 
that the sign of the cross is a stumbling block 

[ 129 ] 



WORSHIP 

to many worthy people; but we claim liberty for our- 
selves, even as they claim liberty for themselves, and 
we feel that we have the right to employ that sign 
which has already been marked upon our brow at 
Baptism. We need to be reminded Whose we are, 
and under Whose banner we serve, and for Whose 
coming we look, and so we forestall that day when 
"the sign of the Son of Man shall appear in the 
Heavens." 

Let us, then, realize the meaning of Worship. It 
is an offering made by man to God. It is, therefore, 
something that man gives, not something that man 
gets. Worship is expressed through the Church, 
which is the Mystical Body of Christ. The Apex of 
Worship is reached in the Church at the Holy Com- 
munion Service: where "with Angels and Arch- 
angels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud 
and praise God's glorious Name." Man is body as 
well as soul; possessed of a physical as well as a 
spiritual nature; which means that the attitude of 
the body enters into his worship of God. The cus- 
toms of the Catholic Church, tried and proved 
through centuries of experience, with regard to the 
appropriate postures of the body in worshipping 
God, should not be lightly cast aside; they represent 
the cumulative testimony of the past. 

"Oh come, let us adore Him, 
Oh come, let us adore Him, 
Oh come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord." 



[130] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 

IT is a truism, but it is a truism frequently over- 
looked, that system is the prerequisite of success- 
ful work; that unless we compel ourselves to an 
ordered arrangement of our day we get but little ac- 
complished, and that little unsatisfactorily. There is 
not a woman who does not appreciate the value of 
system in domestic affairs; whether she always acts 
conscientiously upon the recognition is another mat- 
ter — some women do, and some women do not. 
There is washing day; there is sweeping day, or there 
are sweeping days; there is marketing day; there is 
a special time devoted to the trustful ordering of 
food over the merciful telephone; there are stated 
meals at stated hours; there are evenings out, and 
evenings in, for the household staff, if the mistress 
of the house is fortunate enough to be possessed of 
the luxury of a household staff, a luxury which at 
the present time is not altogether dependent upon 
the financial ability of the employer, but upon the 
good will of the employed; there is an occasion for 
bed making, and an evening hour when the beds 
are seductively turned down and made ready for the 
delectation of their tired occupants. From early in 
the morning to late at night the domestic routine is 
carried out with the regularity of clockwork. And 
what a gigantic task it is; what a commendation of 
a woman it is to say "she is an excellent house- 
keeper!" Men in general, and husbands in particu- 
lar, should be more appreciative of the efforts of 
women day in and day out, year in and year out, to 
make the wheels of family life revolve with com- 
forting smoothness. 

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SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

There is not a business man who does not ap- 
preciate the value of system in business affairs; 
whether he always acts conscientiously upon the 
recognition is another matter — some men do and 
some men do not. The men who do are the men 
who, as the saying is, "make good." There is a defi- 
nite hour at which a man should arrive at his office 
every day; if not for necessity's sake, at any rate for 
appearance's sake. It is the conviction of the writer, 
and a conviction not altogether based upon hearsay, 
that oftentimes a man arrives at his office prema- 
turely, and does little else than fuss about surrepti- 
tiously, and read the newspaper for an hour or so. It 
is wise, however, for a man to be punctual in his 
arrival at his place of business, and at an earlier 
moment than the dictates of the situation would sug- 
gest, for it creates at least an atmosphere of infallible 
industry frought with enthusiasm to all concerned. 
After this entrance upon the scene of hostilities, for 
business is undoubtedly a battle, the morning and the 
afternoon hours are close-packed with a recognized 
sequence of endeavor. Matters chase hot-footed 
upon their fellows, and habit rears its square jawed, 
and Napoleon-chiseled head, as a general of strategy 
not to be gainsaid in its offensive, and defensive op- 
erations. There is concentration to the point of dis- 
association of consciousness; there is a handling of 
detail, and a manipulation of generalities, that leave 
no room or opportunity for extraneous considera- 
tions; there is diagnosis, and prognosis, of conditions, 
and possibilities; there is specialized treatment ad- 
ministered to meet the exigencies of concurrent 
cases; until at the end of the day, having gotten as 
much into the day as the length of the day would 
permit, the man of business returns to his home a 

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SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 



living witness to the necessity of regularity as well 
as assiduity of application. 

The value of system — the value of placing first 
things first, and second things second — the value of 
premeditatedly falling into a routine of activity — 
the value of doing certain things not merely in a cer- 
tain way, but at certain hours — where lives the man 
or woman with intelligence so dead that he or she 
does not admit such behavior to be essential to the 
successful prosecution of all performance? Why; it 
is even coming to be appreciated in the ministry, and 
that is the last word needed in defense of its absolute 
propriety ! 

Now, the extraordinary thing is, and here we 
have the substance of what is in the writer's mind — 
all that has gone before is but an introduction to this 
theme — the extraordinary thing is that women who 
are wise in domestic affairs, Who will brook no inter- 
ference with schedule in the running of their homes, 
and that men who are wise in business life, who de- 
mand regularity of operation in themselves and in 
their subordinates — who appreciate the fact that the 
heart has its habits as well as the head, and that if 
we worked only when we felt like it we could contain 
the amount in a pint measure, and the quality in a 
window pane — wave their hands in fond farewell to 
system when they enter the realms of the religious 
life. The taut, tight, compacted individual in secular 
vocation, precise and prim to the point of bloodless- 
ness, is floppy, flabby, and slipshod to a degree in his 
or her Christian calling. The man who would never 
dream of missing a day from his business, unless 
hindered by illness, and serious indisposition at that, 
thinks nothing of missing church on a Sunday, or of 
staying away from the regular meeting of some 

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SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

churchly organization. The woman who would be 
perfectly miserable were she to forfeit her legitimate 
daily task for the enjoyment of a suddenly turned 
up and unlooked for pleasure, who would feel that 
the morning was squandered irrevocably if some im- 
portunate engagement interfered with her inaugura- 
tion of the daily affairs of the household, the issuing 
of orders to the maids, or the providing for the daily 
commissariat, thinks nothing of being absent from 
her place in church, or her accustomed chair in the 
parish house, upon any excuse — the flimsier the ex- 
cuse the better! It is an extraordinary state of af- 
fairs. The same person who is in love with easeful 
system, for system makes all things easy, in mundane 
matters, in conditions and circumstances that have 
preeminently to do with the body, is divorced from 
all semblance of affection for system in the things 
of God, in conditions and circumstances that have 
to do preeminently with the soul. 

The writer has seen this phenomenon exempli- 
fied in the cases of individuals, and societies of in- 
dividuals. It is one of the most real impressions of 
his ministerial life. The contrast between the fidelity 
exhibited in worldly living, and the infidelity ex- 
hibited in religious living. The antithesis between 
system in the home, and in the shop, and the lack 
of system in the church, and in all that appertains 
to organised Christian life. What shall we say about 
all this; what is the explanation of the seemingly 
inexplicable contradiction?- We ask the question in 
guileless sincerity, we have no axe to grind, we are 
not aware that our parishioners are over guilty in 
this matter as compared with the members of other 
churches, and, moreover, we ask the question in full 
consciousness that it is futile to answer it; that no 

[134] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 



appreciable improvement will follow upon the eluci- 
dation of the problem. Human nature is human na- 
ture, and this habit of inconsistency is so deeply in- 
grained in man as to be, practically speaking, ineradi- 
cable. The most we may hope for is that an indi- 
vidual here and there may be moved to give the mat- 
ter some degree of consideration, and so be inspired 
to amend his or her ways. 

The initial trouble is undoubtedly due to the fact 
that people live by the will in secular life, and im- 
agine that in the religious life they are expected to 
live by the feelings. Systematic living is conse- 
quent upon a determined, and continued exercise of 
the will. A man has to make up his mind, a woman 
has to make up her mind, to be regular in his or her 
performance of obligation, and the making up of the 
mind is pushed into the arena of practical politics 
through a realized act, or series of acts, of the will. 
"I will do this, I will do that; I will do this at a cer- 
tain time, and I will do that at a certain time; I am 
determined that nothing shall prevent me in the ac- 
complishment of this, or in the achievement of that." 
This is the language, expressed or unexpressed in 
actual wordage, uttered by people in their family, 
business, or professional life. The Will, the focus- 
sing power behind imagination, is brought into 
constant play. By the will men and women live and 
move and have their being in worldly affairs. The 
stronger the will power, as we say, and the greater 
the individual capacity of determination, the stronger 
the life, and the greater the results attained. 

But, in Christian living the emphasis is shifted 
from the will to the emotions. The fallacy originates 
in a false conception of the character and personality 
of Jesus Christ; in the estimate of his life upon the 

[135] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

basis of sentimentality rather than of sentiment. 
Jesus is supposed to have been the embodiment of 
mercy, of a good natured, weak-kneed altruism de- 
natured of justice. It is forgotten that mercy is jus- 
tice on the return journey, and completing itself in 
the return; that mercy is justice in tears. All the 
soft and beautiful sayings of Jesus are treasured up 
to the exclusion of the hard and eloquently forceful 
utterances. The Son of Man is seen in retrospect as 
a kindly-disposed and indulgent personage who went 
about doing good; forgiving the sinner, healing the 
sick, and on occasion raising the dead. The world 
has forgotten that the Christ could be outspoken in 
His condemnation of wrong, and unswerving in his 
denunciation of hypocracy. The words — "into whose- 
soever house ye go, and they receive you not, shake 
off the very dust from your feet as a testimony 
against them," "ye whited sepulchres; ye dead men's 
bones," "ye are the sons of your father the Devil, and 
he was a liar from the beginning," etc., etc.; the action 
of the Christ who made a scourge of small cords, and 
drove the merchants from the temple, and who 
turned in blazing indignation upon the would-be 
tactful disciple, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan," 
are altogether forgotten, or only remembered to be 
explained away, in the picture that Christendom has 
painted of the Saviour who considered sin to be of 
such sufficient import as to warrant crucifixion. This 
portrait, consciously or unconsciously, is at the back- 
ground of the mental horizon of the average Chris- 
tian, and it leads him in his religious life to regulate 
his behavior by the standard of the feelings rather 
than by the standard of the will. 

"I go to church when I feel like it, and I stay 
away from church when I feel like it," "I come to the 

[136] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 



Communion when I feel good enough, and I absent 
myself from the Communion when I do not feel as 
good as I ought," "I will be confirmed when I feel 
like it, not before." This is the way people talk; it 
is all feel, feel, feel. The reality of religious ex- 
perience is gaged by the feelings — "I felt close to 
God; I felt that God was far away; I felt that it did 
me good; I felt that I gained nothing from the serv- 
ice or the sermon." Only the other day, as often in 
the past, someone said to the writer, "I cannot help 
but feel that God has forsaken me; there was a time 
when I was conscious of His presence, but now my 
prayers seem to be shouted into space, and I am 
walking the road of life by myself." 

It is all wrong; the whole attitude is founded 
upon misconception, and it is a misconception which 
has done infinite harm to the cause of religion. Re- 
ligion is not a matter of feeling, it is a matter of will- 
ing. It is a wonderful experience now and then to 
feel that God is nearer than breathing, closer than 
hands and feet; it is a glorious experience to be 
vouchsafed, as we sometimes are, the glow of feeling 
which comes during the reception of the Sacrament, 
or after the performance of a worthy, and unselfish 
deed; these are mountain tops of personal history 
from which we survey the landscape of our destiny, 
and are encouraged by the view to new incursions 
into the territory that stretches between the soul and 
God. But, these experiences are few and far be- 
tween; they are in the nature of oases in the wilder- 
ness of the religious life, in which we lie down be- 
neath the verdant shade, and drink of the refresh- 
ing streams, and are strengthened for the journey. 
The wilderness, however, is the ground we are called 
upon to traverse; it is infinitely greater in extent and 

[ 137 ] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 



area than the occasional oases dotted here and there 
over the sandy carpet of our toilsome march; and 
through the wilderness we must march day by day, 
decade by decade, perchance to the age of three score 
years and ten, by the resolute setting and resetting 
of the will, not by the fluctuating sensations of the 
heart. 

"He that willeth to do the Will of God shall 
know of the doctrine. That is the gist of the whole 
matter. "Willeth to do" by such willing, and doing 
consequent upon the willing, may we alone endure 
to the end, and so expect to be saved. 

Just imagine the change that would come over 
the aspect of Christian life as seen in the world today 
if people began to will instead of feel in religious 
matters! Picture nine hundred people in a con- 
gregation, clenching their hands, and setting their 
teeth, and hissing in determined resolution, "I will 
set aside one Sunday, the first, or the second, or the 
third, or the fourth Sunday, in each month for the 
reception of the Holy Communion. I will be pres- 
ent at this or that society on such and such a day 
without fail. I will say my prayers morning and 
evening, and I will see to it that the time I devote 
to them is longer than the time I devote to brush- 
ing my teeth, or tidying my hair; however rushed 
or sleepy I may happen to be I will put first things 
first. I will be definitely generous in my support 
of the worship of the House of God, and not per- 
mit my way to be paid by other people, for I am 
a self-respecting person, and I realize that God has 
the first claim upon my wealth." Why, what would 
happen? Sure am I that many of us, whether 
evangelical in our religious opinions or otherwise, 
would imagine that the Millenium had suddenly 

[ 138 ] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

settled down upon our local Jerusalem, and that 
all of us would believe that the age of miracles 
was not a thing of the past, but a fact of the appre- 
ciated present. And, yet, what would the substance 
of the change denote? Simply this: that systematic 
business men and women had come to the conclus- 
ion that it was right and of the nature of efficiency 
to be systematic in their Christian lives; that they 
had transferred some of their native, and educated 
genius into the realm of religion! The exercise of 
the will would do away with the ludicrousness of 
Christian behavior — the bobbing up, and the bobbing 
down of otherwise respectable people, bobbing up 
to the surface of vision, and then bobbing down 
out of sight goodness knows where; the "I am hot; 
feel me, I am boiling," and then "I am cold; do 
not touch me, or you will freeze"; the "Hurrah Boys, 
get into the band wagon, the riding is fine," and 
then "Jump out, boys, the road is lumpy, the cart 
has no springs, and the dragging power of the horse 
is poor"; the "I will be there," and then the "I for- 
got about it," or "something turned up and pre- 
vented my attendance"; the "you may rely upon 
me," and then the realization of the victim that you 
could not rely upon him at all. Yes, the exercise 
of the will would change the face of things until 
the face of things was recognizable no longer as the 
same face which had smiled before your invitation 
and then winked behind your back. 

Let us get the will to work in our Christian life. 
Let us plod on whatever the obstructions in our 
path, however cold the weather, and however ap- 
preciably lonely the journey. We cannot feel God 
all the time; we must make up our minds to that; 
we are fortunate if we feel God with any regularity 

[ 139 ] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

at all; but we must will God every day, and every 
hour of the day, and persist in what we know to 
be right. This Christianity is no hallelujah busi- 
ness, it is no Psalm singing chorus, it is no Praise 
the Lord, Amen, Revival Meeting, it is no emotion 
filled caravanserie packed with jubilant travelers, 
it is a stiff pull over steep places, and arid, thirst- 
wracked slopes, and only the will, in constant op- 
eration, is sufficient to the start, the intervening 
stages, and the destination. We must have our 
hours of daily starting, our times of daily trans- 
action of all necessary business, our occasions of 
daily refreshment, our stated moments of commun- 
ion with The General Manager. We must have a 
constant expression of the will, and the will must be 
incarnated in system. We must set our face stead- 
fastly to go up to Jerusalem. 

The other reason why people contradict the or- 
derliness of their secular living in the disorderliness 
of their religious living — for though there are many 
reasons we must limit ourselves to two — is undoubt- 
edly due to the fact that there is a general impression 
that the Christian life is a life of supererogation; 
something over and above what is necessary. Busi- 
ness is important; professional life is vital; but the 
observance of so-called Christian obligations is an 
overplus to the requisite plus, a matter of personal 
predilection, and to be undertaken, and persevered 
in, at the discretion of the individual. 

It has been reported in the newspapers that a 
minister of the gospel in Lakewood, fortunately not 
an Episcopalian, had said that it was unnecessary for 
him to preach the Hereafter, but incumbent upon 
him to preach the Here. We hope for the sake of 
propriety, to put it on the lowest grounds, that the 

[140] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

worthy gentleman was misquoted; for the preemi- 
nent business of a minister of Christ, and the only 
justification of his existence, is to relate the seconds 
to the hours, and to synthesize the ephemeral and the 
lasting. The fallacy attributed to the aforesaid pas- 
tor is, however, symptomatic of the attitude of the 
preponderating majority of men and women. "We 
are here, we have never been anywhere else, we are 
not assured of the truth of the prediction that there 
is any anywhere else, and so we shall apply ourselves 
exclusively to our present, and apprehended, oppor- 
tunities." It is thus that people speak, and they pride 
themselves upon their common sense. Is it any won- 
der, then, that the system of business, domestic, and 
professional life is not carried over into spiritual af- 
fairs. "The one is real, as real as taste, and touch, 
and sound; the other is uncertain to say the least, and 
indefinite at best. Wherefore my worldly brethren 
let us concentrate all our ingenuity, and talent, 
upon the former." It is thus that the animals speak; 
w r ould that we could understand their language, for 
if we did we should find a duplication in words and 
sentences of the above idiocy of expression. The 
lion says, "Here we are in the forest, O fellow lion; 
you and I are friends, for expediency's sake, and for 
the sake of propagation, we have consented to let 
one another live, but the mercy which we show to 
one another we must on no account show to any 
other lion, or bear, or martial beast. Come, let us 
get busy, and forage, and kill, and so preserve our 
existence. Moreover, let us be systematic about the 
matter; I will prowl this part of the jungle, and you 
will prowl yonder portion. I will work from dawn 
to noon, and you will work from noon to sunset. 
The rest of the time we shall spend, unless seriously 

[141] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 

molested, in necessary slumber to prepare us for to- 
morrow's depredations." This is sane advice as com- 
ing from a four footed beast, but it is poor advice, 
and low witted, as coming from a man. And yet, in 
the final analysis that is the logic of the materialist, 
of the man who settles down to be a citizen of this 
world, and catches no glimmer of the light that shines 
from the streets of the New Jerusalem. 

If this life is everything, or even the most of 
everything, then, let us in all conscience make the 
most of the present, for there is no future to prepare 
for, no tomorrow to make ready against. Let us 
systematize our work, and our play — seeing to it, of 
course, that there is a time to laugh, and a time to 
cry, and the crying will predominate — and be as wise, 
and as sparing, as Satan in our use of time, for the 
time is short. But, if this life is only the beginning 
of things, the vestibule that leads into the spacious 
halls of eternity; if the now is transitory, and the 
then is everlasting; if death is real, and a life lived 
in accordance with the precepts and example of the 
Christ will alone give a man peace at the last; then, 
let us in sanity emphasize, and accentuate, all that 
has to do with the spirit, which lives forever, as well 
as emphasize and accentuate the importance of all 
that pertains to the body, which lives for a span of 
years at most, at any rate in its present consistency. 
A man may be born stupid, that is something over 
which he has little, if any, control, but there is no 
reason why a man should determine to be a fool; and 
yet such a fool is he who goes to his office at such 
an hour every day, and only goes to church when he 
feels like it; such a fool is he who opens his morn- 
ing's mail, sorts it, and answers it, with the regularity 
of a machine, and forgets to say his daily prayers, 

[ 142 ] 



SYSTEM IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 



or remembers that he ought to say them, and pleads 
excess of work as an excuse for not saying them; 
such a fool is he who qualifies for membership at the 
bar, or for a seat in the stock exchange, and yet neg- 
lects to qualify for membership in the church of 
Jesus Christ, His bride, and Love; such a fool is he 
who attends the meetings of this or that board, of 
this or that corporation, and yet deprives himself of 
the family privilege of feeding periodically upon the 
prescribed food for Christian men. 

When, O when, shall we recognize our foolish- 
ness, appreciate our lopsidedness, acknowledge our 
short sightedness, and come, through the inaugura- 
tion of system in our Christian calling, to live the 
lives of wise, balanced, and far seeing men, and 
women? Echo answers — WHEN? 



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